Re: [BTC-TC] Virtual Securities Exchange by BTC Trading Corp -- Public Beta
Pulling this out of the BitFunder thread, it probably makes more sense to have it here. 
I apologize, I was reading the "Organization and Management" section of the LTC-GLOBAL asset. It mentions "Currently LTC-GLOBAL is majority owned by burnside", with the domain is maintained under your services in the U.S., and under "Financial Management" where it states "All costs to date have come out of burnside's pocket.", it appears is you are the "Big Cheese"/"Head Honcho"/owner along with the people you are designating as "shareholders" that buy into the "Corporation"(not sure what type?) that is registered in Belize? You might seriously want to consider posting an 'About Us' page listing off the Belize corporation information, as well as listing the people behind the corporation, and official titles and responsibilities. Show the people that it is a real corporation, and it has to means to operate as one.
(Also, it is very common for many small~medium businesses to post pictures and full profiles of the people operating, and making the decisions in the company.)
As it stands from an outsiders point of view, it's all you bud.
(And any "shareholders" a court decides to indict. 
) (While I was kind of joking about that, it is still a serious consideration.) So seriously think on putting something up to help show show _everyone_ who might be interested, and how real of a corporation that it is.
That prospectus was written up when LTC-GLOBAL was first created. You probably also noticed lots of other things out of date, eg:
We didn't have the BTC-TC site at all yet, and had not yet tackled all the legal issues. All of the transitional parts and pieces have been documented in the LTC-GLOBAL threads (and a shareholder motion) over time, (including a post of our corporate registration certificate) but you're right, it needs updated. I'll tackle that soon.
... I probably won't be posting pictures of me though. If you ask nice I'm happy to share my linked-in profile via PM.
Oh yes, no one said it would be easy in any way shape or form. That's why no one has done it yet.
If you do not look, and press on, you never know.
As far as it being a joke, the moment you get into court, all laughs and games aside, the judge will ask you point blank, "If it's all 'virtual currency', fun and games, and exactly 'how' the users get this 'virtual currency' to trade it on your site since you do not sell it yourself. You could say "Users can 'mine' it using their already bought computers.", but I promise you within the first cross-examination, the DA will ask if "mining" uses additional electricity, and generally requires some investment of some sort, and could be traded out by many other central places for real currency, and if it has any sort of agreed value online or otherwise".
Putting that aside, you COULD argue that you are no different than a game company like World of Warcraft with your own 'virtual currency'. The problem is that unlike SecondLife, and many other's, you are not using your own 'virtual currency'. This is something you might want to consider doing with some simple fee-less third party exchanges, or possibly internally.
I think the line is "Hobbyists use their high performance gaming video cards to create it." Part of the fun is constantly tweaking it to maximize performance. Like back in the day when people used to constantly reboot their 386's, editing their DOS boot files to get maximum memory to play a game. You're right that it's in a questionable space legally, but anything that can be said about WoW/SecondLife can be said about cryptocoin. Some people do it for fun, some for profit.
I think we covered this in one of the threads a while back. The shares represented on LTC-GLOBAL are proxied shares held by a nominee shareholder. I have offered up a trade for anyone holding a large amount of shares of their LTC-GLOBAL proxied shares to actual shares held and registered with the corporate secretary. You just have to go through usual AML type requirements. Photo id's, passport, proof of address, etc.
I do not claim that they have no value. That would be like saying that WoW gold or Lindens have no value. It doesn't hold water. I do however hold that they have zero real cash value until you trade them for cash with someone. Fact of the matter is that with all the cryptocurrencies, the value can be wiped out at any time by the developer, or even by a hacker. (51% attack, or a vulnerability in the underlying crypto layer.) So I don't think any of us realize a profit or income until such time that we actually have cash in hand.
Ahhh, I apologize, I must have overlooked it or perhaps did not consider that the same. I think a lot of the problem is that many users do not trust the asset issuers when it comes down to money. Everyone has a scammer tag in their holster ready to quick draw the moment something even remotely smells funny, regardless of how well known, or reliable the issuer has been. We have already seen cases of people questioning issuers "where did XXX shares come from? Why do you have them? Do you have proof you owned them before YYY?" I guess in this respect, and the information not being out there for everyone to see, and not being 100% fully transparent just screams (to me, along with all the other voices in my head ) like it would still lead to many MANY more potential major incidents with a lot of "he said, she said".
If you can't trust your issuer, then the asset holds no value anyway.
Thanks!
It is incorrect that BTC Trading Corp is operated by a US Citizen. It is operated by a group of gentlemen that reside in Belize from an office in Belize City. While I hold a large stake in the company, my role is roughly that of a webmaster. I do not have access to the corporate bank account for instance, and core site operations like asset approvals, etc, are handled by the shareholders.
I apologize, I was reading the "Organization and Management" section of the LTC-GLOBAL asset. It mentions "Currently LTC-GLOBAL is majority owned by burnside", with the domain is maintained under your services in the U.S., and under "Financial Management" where it states "All costs to date have come out of burnside's pocket.", it appears is you are the "Big Cheese"/"Head Honcho"/owner along with the people you are designating as "shareholders" that buy into the "Corporation"(not sure what type?) that is registered in Belize? You might seriously want to consider posting an 'About Us' page listing off the Belize corporation information, as well as listing the people behind the corporation, and official titles and responsibilities. Show the people that it is a real corporation, and it has to means to operate as one.
(Also, it is very common for many small~medium businesses to post pictures and full profiles of the people operating, and making the decisions in the company.)
As it stands from an outsiders point of view, it's all you bud.
(And any "shareholders" a court decides to indict. ) (While I was kind of joking about that, it is still a serious consideration.) So seriously think on putting something up to help show show _everyone_ who might be interested, and how real of a corporation that it is.That prospectus was written up when LTC-GLOBAL was first created. You probably also noticed lots of other things out of date, eg:
Quote
Our sole product is the website litecoinglobal.com. Hopefully in the future we
will have a bitcoin denominated website, however we must be careful in our
current legal environment to make sure that everyone understands that no matter
what crypto-commodity we use to trade with, our site is for entertainment
only. If you want to invest in real-world securities you will have to look
elsewhere.
will have a bitcoin denominated website, however we must be careful in our
current legal environment to make sure that everyone understands that no matter
what crypto-commodity we use to trade with, our site is for entertainment
only. If you want to invest in real-world securities you will have to look
elsewhere.
We didn't have the BTC-TC site at all yet, and had not yet tackled all the legal issues. All of the transitional parts and pieces have been documented in the LTC-GLOBAL threads (and a shareholder motion) over time, (including a post of our corporate registration certificate) but you're right, it needs updated. I'll tackle that soon.
... I probably won't be posting pictures of me though. If you ask nice I'm happy to share my linked-in profile via PM.
Lawyer and I did a lot of research into this. While not impossible, this would be an incredible feat until you have some significant revenue. The problem is that most (every country I could find except for the Cook Islands) already have the equivalent of an SEC and require exchanges to be registered. They're not going to approve you for trading in other than the local currencies, and will require your exchange to operate solely within their jurisdiction. I would absolutely love it if you find somewhere out there that is a good home for legit BTC exchanges, but even if you did, it would still be illegal for that exchange to solicit US investors. I know everyone likes to poke fun at it, but there's more legitimacy in the virtual exchange (educational and entertainment purposes only...) than you might think. The very fact that everyone on the forums pokes fun at it legitimizes it because it's something I can hold up in court, "see your Honor, no one took it seriously, they all understood what it was." Anyway, I digress.
Oh yes, no one said it would be easy in any way shape or form. That's why no one has done it yet.
If you do not look, and press on, you never know.
As far as it being a joke, the moment you get into court, all laughs and games aside, the judge will ask you point blank, "If it's all 'virtual currency', fun and games, and exactly 'how' the users get this 'virtual currency' to trade it on your site since you do not sell it yourself. You could say "Users can 'mine' it using their already bought computers.", but I promise you within the first cross-examination, the DA will ask if "mining" uses additional electricity, and generally requires some investment of some sort, and could be traded out by many other central places for real currency, and if it has any sort of agreed value online or otherwise".
Putting that aside, you COULD argue that you are no different than a game company like World of Warcraft with your own 'virtual currency'. The problem is that unlike SecondLife, and many other's, you are not using your own 'virtual currency'. This is something you might want to consider doing with some simple fee-less third party exchanges, or possibly internally.
I think the line is "Hobbyists use their high performance gaming video cards to create it." Part of the fun is constantly tweaking it to maximize performance. Like back in the day when people used to constantly reboot their 386's, editing their DOS boot files to get maximum memory to play a game.
You're right that it's in a questionable space legally, but anything that can be said about WoW/SecondLife can be said about cryptocoin. Some people do it for fun, some for profit. Although, I am curious what your lawyer thought about publicly trading "fake" shares of the "real" Belize corporation and treating those "fake" shares as "real" ones by giving out "real" dividends of "real" profits to those share holders as if they actually owned the "real" shares of the company, and how to deal with the Belize securities dept. if they come asking. (As you said, they won't be happy.) I do understand that you are claiming it is all fake, and has no value.. but I just don't see a judge agreeing with that in any way. "Yes your honor, none of our 'virtual shareholders' hold any real stock in our company. We just.. pay them out real profit worth of shares in that amount.. as if they actually owned them. It's all fun and games... for learning.. you see... ?" (Please, PLEASE tell me I missed something, because I feel bad now that I have considered and written this, and it is 5:10am. )
)I think we covered this in one of the threads a while back. The shares represented on LTC-GLOBAL are proxied shares held by a nominee shareholder. I have offered up a trade for anyone holding a large amount of shares of their LTC-GLOBAL proxied shares to actual shares held and registered with the corporate secretary. You just have to go through usual AML type requirements. Photo id's, passport, proof of address, etc.
I do not claim that they have no value. That would be like saying that WoW gold or Lindens have no value. It doesn't hold water. I do however hold that they have zero real cash value until you trade them for cash with someone. Fact of the matter is that with all the cryptocurrencies, the value can be wiped out at any time by the developer, or even by a hacker. (51% attack, or a vulnerability in the underlying crypto layer.) So I don't think any of us realize a profit or income until such time that we actually have cash in hand.
Short answer. It's in the FAQ... "Q: Why should we trust this site after so many others have failed?", and on the main page in the list of done todo's where each feature has been crossed off as it was developed.
Longer answer: litecoinglobal.com had this from day... 1? maybe 2? (btct.co being a clone of litecoinglobal.com) There are no less than 3 different ways the asset issuers can get at the data. In the website. Via JSON API. And via email. The email is automatic... you get a copy of all your shareholders in your inbox twice a day. MPEx poked all kinds of fun at me for the email feature, but the bottom line is that I have no idea if anything will ever happen to the site and I don't want to be responsible for anyone's economic loss. So it'd be easy to shift from one of BTC Trading Corp's exchanges to another exchange elsewhere because we've always been about making it easy for the asset issuers to do their thing. This may eventually be to our detriment, as the issuers really could leave at any time, but I still feel strongly that it's important to give your users the tools they need to succeed.
Longer answer: litecoinglobal.com had this from day... 1? maybe 2? (btct.co being a clone of litecoinglobal.com) There are no less than 3 different ways the asset issuers can get at the data. In the website. Via JSON API. And via email. The email is automatic... you get a copy of all your shareholders in your inbox twice a day. MPEx poked all kinds of fun at me for the email feature, but the bottom line is that I have no idea if anything will ever happen to the site and I don't want to be responsible for anyone's economic loss. So it'd be easy to shift from one of BTC Trading Corp's exchanges to another exchange elsewhere because we've always been about making it easy for the asset issuers to do their thing. This may eventually be to our detriment, as the issuers really could leave at any time, but I still feel strongly that it's important to give your users the tools they need to succeed.
Ahhh, I apologize, I must have overlooked it or perhaps did not consider that the same. I think a lot of the problem is that many users do not trust the asset issuers when it comes down to money. Everyone has a scammer tag in their holster ready to quick draw the moment something even remotely smells funny, regardless of how well known, or reliable the issuer has been. We have already seen cases of people questioning issuers "where did XXX shares come from? Why do you have them? Do you have proof you owned them before YYY?" I guess in this respect, and the information not being out there for everyone to see, and not being 100% fully transparent just screams (to me, along with all the other voices in my head
) like it would still lead to many MANY more potential major incidents with a lot of "he said, she said".If you can't trust your issuer, then the asset holds no value anyway.
I do also like your systems voting model, it is a very unique and interesting system.
(Just make sure no one confuses it with a "real" shareholders vote! )
(Just make sure no one confuses it with a "real" shareholders vote!
)Thanks!