(Patrick, if you feel this discussion is OT, just say so and we'll stop.)
Actually it was quite interesting to wake this morning and see where it had evolved to. Even more interesting to hear people claim I/we were losing money when at a simple level the tangible coins flow out the other end into people's pockets. (and perhaps envious that I wasn't around when someone decided to sell div shares at 1.0)
The overall point, is that if you only have a few coins, and do not have a BS&T account, there are a few ways of gaining access to high returns. We have seen a growth in competing products, but these have taken five or six weeks to come to market, and at least one of them has folded before launch. Some are backed by well known and reputable members of the forum, others not so well known, and a range of rates/features.
Despite this, we have still sold 3000 PPT.A bonds this week, have 4000 coins in reserves, found a few places where we broke GLBSE, raised a lot of awareness, had some interesting announcements from Pirate, paid dividends, redeemed two rounds of bonds, and delivered some advantage to a lot of people (I think there were over 100 cleared bids yesterday - not sure how many individuals).
Tomorrow we pay another dividend 0.0289 BTC/share to 9000 shares so the recipients of those payments are not necessarily losing money on PPT.
Math can do a lot of things, including "proving" logical impossibilities. For example:
Let a = b.
Then a^2 = a*b.
Then 2a^2 = a^2 + a*b.
Then 2a^2 - 2ab = a^2 + ab - 2ab.
Consequently 2a^2 - 2ab = a^2 - ab.
Factoring, 2(a^2 - ab) = 1(a^2 - ab).
Divide by (a^2 - ab), and...
2 = 1
(There is (sort of) an error in the above, but most people miss it. See if you can guess it!)
More seriously, we are not questioning the financial viability of PPT assuming Pirate does not default, only the less-than-optimal profitability in comparison to directly investing 960 BTC. Essentially, if you have 100% guaranteed investment opportunities, one that pays 1% per week, and another that pays 2%, both make money, but the second is the better choice financially.
I like what you're doing here, and you have my kudos. (And you certainly started a trend.) Don't get me wrong, I think PPT has had a positive impact and I wouldn't want you to cease it. Some of us just like spending our Friday nights doing math.
