Quote from: burnside on June 30, 2013, 06:31:21 AM

Quote from: ryantw on June 29, 2013, 04:20:07 PM

Very true. Having a poorly run investment exchange is just welcoming government problems. Look at what happened to mtgox. Obviously that is a different scenario, but it shows that you have to run a tight ship. Having a bitcoin securities exchange that is irresponsible as far as assets it allows is asking for problems. The concept of wild west investing when using bitcoin should be abandoned when it is obvious that the asset is a delusion investment.

Bitfunder/BTCTC/others: please be responsible in what you allow to be listed. Fancy spreadsheets, "estimates" and big promises should be considered worthless. At least have a warning on specific assets that (a) do not have hardware in hand (b) are heavily based on research/development before profit occurs (c) cashflow will not occur for over 3 months.

I keep seeing these assets being listed that are basically "Ordered asic chips from xyc. They are expected to be here in 3-6 months. Pay off my initial cost, believe my estimates and share in the mined bitcoin". Its awful.

To me it is definitely important to maintain the integrity of the exchange. If you look through the AMC thread, (if it hasn't been self-moderated out?) you'll see that myself and many of those involved with BTC-TC have been asking questions and pointing out problems. We tend to get drowned out in the excitement, and as you can see by how quickly the asset was approved, it's obvious to me that at least some of the (there are 20+ now) mods were also excited.

I'm not sure yet how this will ultimately pan out. Ken seems to be putting in the man hours, trying to get things together. I really don't feel like this is an outright Pirateat40 kind of deal. Does that mean I think it will succeed? I'm not sure. I believe they already hash, I believe they will make a chip, I believe they'll probably even get their unit out the door. What I'm not sure of is if they can do it before everyone else does, or if they can do it in sufficient volume.

This is undeniably extremely high risk to be investing in. When I bought my first 100 ASICMINER shares on GLBSE I was almost certain I was going to lose it. When I bought my first 100 shares of NYAN.B I was almost certain I would not lose it. So go figure. Those 100 ASICMINER shares have made up for all my GLBSE losses.

Quote from: Entropy-uc on June 30, 2013, 01:38:52 AM

Quote from: lysr on June 29, 2013, 11:39:29 PM

AMC isn't even a company, it is only a unit under VMC. How could it be approved for public trading?

Most sites just charge a fee and you are listed. Your contract could say that you will use the money to 'Kill Whitey' and you could still be trading.

I had thought BTCT.co would be different as they do have a review process, but they failed miserably in this instance. It looks like buyers there lost 750 BTC in the last 2 days so maybe changes will be made.

More likely not though.

My understanding is that AMC and VMC are two separate companies, with contractual agreements between each other. This structure is not unlike the ASICMINER arrangement, though I have not picked apart all the details. (read Deprived's posts on this, they are fairly informative.)

I'm not sure yet this is a complete failure. What the investors paid 0.0025 per share for has not fundamentally changed, so what they wanted when they paid that they got. There is no loss unless you sell, at which point you no longer have whatever it is you wanted at 0.0025. Ken definitely seems to have misjudged the market around the IPO, but SDICE did the same thing, and many other issues have had the same problem. I think the mods that approved it believe that Ken will do his best to fulfill his contract and the obligations he has laid out. Unfortunately after that there is no "IPO management" behind the process, so Ken was free to post the shares at whatever he wanted.

What I really don't get is:

Why did people think 2 days ago that 0.0025 was a great deal?
And now, two days later, with minimal changes to the underlying issue, think it's not a great deal?
On an asset that per stated plans, will take months to deliver?

The market really doesn't make any sense to me sometimes and trying to make sense of it really hurts my brain.

If there are changes to be made it's going to require more manpower to help filter better and to help the issuers plan their IPO's better. I've been discussing getting more people involved lately, I will continue to pursue those avenues.

Cheers.

Good to know you take exchange integrity seriously. There are lots of people watching bitcoin. There is the general public, private sector and governments. If you don't run a tight ship and protect the average investor, certain entities will find a way to cause your business to suffer. Regardless of what country you live in, their reach is far and wide.

Perhaps your list of questions and problems that you pointed out must be directly addressed by the asset and posted before it is listed. A sort of exchange owner Q&A for each individual asset that investors can read before making a decision. For instance, if a question or concern you had, you being the exchange, was lost in the excitement it should at least be addressed in full regardless of excitement or moderator approval.

There are so many holes in the business structure for AMC that it invites theories/accusations/negativity, which is obviously occurring now. Then the exchanges face public discontent as having listed the asset. The business structure of AMC is the main reason why it should never have been allowed as an asset.

Hopefully everyone will learn from this particular issue an avoid such problems in the future.