I love a good mystery!
Now that Invictus 2.0 is up and running in Hong Kong, we had to figure out what to do with Invictus 1.0 in Virginia. You can read all about this in this thread:
We considered simply shutting it down, but it already had all the bank accounts and payroll automation and accounting books set up and compliant with US regulations. So we decided to keep the company to handle payroll and other payments in the U.S.
To avoid confusion, we have applied to the State of Virginia for registration to operate the old Invictus 1.0 under the name Hyperetas, Inc.
Hyperetas is an ancient Greek word which literally means "under rower" but in use means "free man who chooses to act as a mere servant." The job of under rower on a Greek trireme warship was hardly glamorous but it was essential to giving the ship triple power inside a compact length which enabled it to maneuver quickly in order to ram other ships with its metal nose below the water line.
Hyperetas receives its operating budget from the BitShares Trust. It makes payments in BTC, PTS, USD and soon many others, as specified and documented in a group of public spreadsheets which are checked frequently by bitcountant.com. One of the services it performs is handling trading on BitStamp, Cryptsy, and Bter and so enough funds are provided in advance to allow Hyperetas to do conversions on these exchanges when market conditions are most favorable. We try to keep a balance of about $100K in these accounts so that we never have to trade at a bad time in order to make a payment.
As for recycling of AGS, we have said we would not do that. Period. We have also said that once we pay employees or vendors for their services, the money is theirs to do with what they please. It does not surprise us that people working in this industry would want to donate some or all of their earnings to the cause and we have publicly encouraged this from the very beginning.