BitShares Forum

Other => Graveyard => BitShares AGS => Topic started by: Whiskeylake on February 22, 2014, 09:36:34 am

Title: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Whiskeylake on February 22, 2014, 09:36:34 am
So I want to get as much Bitshare X as possible obviously like anyone else, but how do one go about doing that?

Buy PTS ? Buy AGS? And what about the donations, how does that work?

This is so fucking confusing and I'm experiencedin the crypto world, yet this is just puzzling.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: dirktadwater on February 22, 2014, 09:40:15 am
I agree, I own PTS, was under the impression only PTS would convert to bitshares. I guess they threw in another blockchain (Bitshares AGS), thereby halving the PTS value distribution.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: pgbit on February 22, 2014, 10:05:28 am
AGS has, I think, helped the value of PTS very positively, as AGS are being issued in addition, plus you can get AGS with PTS so this has increased the scarcity of PTS. PTS holders havent lost anything percentage wise as I understand it, its just Invictus have launched the AGS fundraising system as an alternative way to acquire bitshares. Just take a look at what has been raised, and you will see the additional confidence in the market now, especially over the last few days.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Markus on February 22, 2014, 12:48:23 pm
50 % of all BTSX will be given to all PTS holders. This is narrowing the first promise of at least 10 %.
The other 50 % of all BTSX will be give to all AGS holders.

AGS is not a blockchain nor is it tradeable.
You can gain AGS by donating to the Angel addresses.
You can donate using either PTS or BTC.
The donations of one calendar day (GMT) compete for 10000 AGS.
The amount of AGS you receive will be (5000 * your BTC donation / total daily BTC donations) + (5000 * your PTS donation / total daily PTS donations)

1 AGS will give you 3.333333… BTSX.
1 PTS will give you roughly 1.3 BTSX.

Currently the way to get most BTSX per dollar is through AGS.


Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: oco101 on February 22, 2014, 01:49:25 pm
I agree, I own PTS, was under the impression only PTS would convert to bitshares. I guess they threw in another blockchain (Bitshares AGS), thereby halving the PTS value distribution.

Actually, you where suppose to get 1:1 BTSX NOW you get 1.3 BTSX so better deal. Also there are only 4 million BTSX not 21 million BTSX so even better deal on you PTS.
All AGS founds will be used to develop the DAC ecosystem. Have a DAC idea ? Well now there are funds for that.
Could be confusing I agree but I think taking the time to understand it will pay dividends.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Whiskeylake on February 22, 2014, 02:25:31 pm
I agree, I own PTS, was under the impression only PTS would convert to bitshares. I guess they threw in another blockchain (Bitshares AGS), thereby halving the PTS value distribution.

Actually, you where suppose to get 1:1 BTSX NOW you get 1.3 BTSX so better deal. Also there are only 4 million BTSX not 21 million BTSX so even better deal on you PTS.
All AGS founds will be used to develop the DAC ecosystem. Have a DAC idea ? Well now there are funds for that.
Could be confusing I agree but I think taking the time to understand it will pay dividends.

PTS'ers get to keep their PTS and sell/use it later on. What about AGS guys?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: oco101 on February 22, 2014, 02:41:13 pm
I agree, I own PTS, was under the impression only PTS would convert to bitshares. I guess they threw in another blockchain (Bitshares AGS), thereby halving the PTS value distribution.

Actually, you where suppose to get 1:1 BTSX NOW you get 1.3 BTSX so better deal. Also there are only 4 million BTSX not 21 million BTSX so even better deal on you PTS.
All AGS founds will be used to develop the DAC ecosystem. Have a DAC idea ? Well now there are funds for that.
Could be confusing I agree but I think taking the time to understand it will pay dividends.

PTS'ers get to keep their PTS and sell/use it later on. What about AGS guys?
AGS are not liquid so you can't sell them, but you can always sell the share from the DAC's that are created. Like BTSX nobody stops you to sell all the BTSX share that you have. And on the future DAC  you'll got a minimum 10% share allocated for AGS holders. So more share for you.
So basically  you sell the golden egg not the golden goose.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: maqifrnswa on February 22, 2014, 03:11:55 pm
PTS'ers get to keep their PTS and sell/use it later on. What about AGS guys?

As said above, AGS guys get to use their AGS again later on, but they don't get to sell it.

You could, in theory, sell the private keys to your wallet to someone - thus selling all future proceeds from AGS. But there are so many ways that can go wrong (socially, not technically).
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 03:22:26 pm
I've heard multiple people say it was better to eliminate mining and add angelshares because that "makes the deal better for PTS holders"  but really that's a bunch of garbage.

Before if you wanted to get Bitshares you could do it one of two ways - Acquire Protoshares or Mine Bitshares when it came out.   That meant anyone not wanting to mine or risk buying at post-launch market prices had to buy Protoshares, it was the only way.

Of course, Invictus didn't make any money off of that and so here comes Angelshares and the new deal where now instead of 10% of BTS going to PTS holders and 90% being mined over a number of years, it would be 50% with the other 50% going towards Angelshares holders.    This makes sense for Invictus because now they have money pouring in, but for PTS holders?  It means that your exclusivity is not only gone but so is any advantage you had.  Since 100% of the money supply is out day one you'll have immediately depressed prices as people sell to recapitalize some of their gains in Bitcoin or move out entirely as they see the financial opportunity having passed. 

Again, this is fine for Invictus, they got the funds and aren't much impacted except being able to buy more of the cheap BTS themselves.  It does however make one wonder why it was even worth buying or acquiring PTS since a) BTS will be available cheaply due to over supply and b) PTS is the WORST way to vest yourselves with Bitshares because of the math at work.   On February 28th Protoshares holders will get 1-1.5 Bitshares per PTS.  On February 28th Angelshares holders will get 3-4 Bitshares per AGS.   They both "cost" the same, but the more people who go into angelshares per day the worse the deal is for all of them.  Protoshares holders have the option of getting the worst return on investment available or giving their money to invictus and competing with everybody else for the remaining AGS before none of this matters any more.

When the deal gets better for someone, it gets worse for someone else.   I continue to be disappointed by the inability to acknowledge that.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 22, 2014, 03:57:40 pm
When the deal gets better for someone, it gets worse for someone else.   I continue to be disappointed by the inability to acknowledge that.

The people for whom the deal got worse is *people who were holding PTS for speculative value*, NOT people who were holding for shares in I3's DACs. The original deal was better for people wanting to sell PTS right before snapshot or sell BTS right after launch, but worse for someone who thought I3's DACs would become successful and wanted to maximize returns from this prediction.

If you bought PTS to invest in BTS and then stopped following along, you'll notice your PTS now award a much higher share than before. Nice investment!
If you bought PTS to invest in BTS and *have* been following along, the above is still true you had the chance to get cheap AGS for like a month.

You have one good point I think, and that's that I3 changed their promise at all. It costs some credibility, but I thought it was worth it.

I feel like I'm in the same situation as you (bought PTS before the big changes) but from my perspective the deal has been getting sweeter and sweeter.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: CLains on February 22, 2014, 05:23:34 pm
When the deal gets better for someone, it gets worse for someone else. 

If I have a company and people pay for computer hardware, electricity, malware developers, mining pools, cost of acquiring and putting setting everything up, etc. to get a share in my company then the only winner is the third party services. Why? Because the money going into these services do not add any value. Why do they not add value? Because the type of security that they help provide can be replaced with a type of security that costs nothing.

With the introduction of AGS, PTS holders could add value to the company directly by investing in AGS. Now suddenly Invictus is a first-mover in the realm of acquiring serious funding. With the old PTS model Invictus was backed by a tiny team of coders with a few dollars up their sleeve. With AGS we're now sitting on PTS backed by a growing team of coders with millions of dollars to spend on development, legal issues, promotion, etc.

If you don't think Bitshares will be worth anything, then just sell some PTS now (they're as high as BTC was at 1000+), and then buy them back after the snapshot. Or use the money to buy Bitshares after launch. From an investor perspective the ROI is off the charts every way.

You may have a point if you discuss promises, etc. but that's another discussion. As far as ROI goes I don't see how PTS holders are losing out. Their company were the first to replace a ridiculous business model with an ingenious and profitable one. We'll see in a few months time though.. This is a rapidly evolving field and everybody will constantly be making mistakes.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 05:39:12 pm
If you listened to Invictus up until the middle of December and did what they asked, acquiring PTS by mining or buying them, you are the biggest loser of Invictus investors.  You say the deal got better because you're looking at this numerically.  I think the deal got worse because I look at it comparatively.   

In December holding PTS meant you were in the most advantageous position to receive Bitshares.   Now your position is not even 1/3rd as valuable as the position of someone holding angelshares, which cost about the same as PTS.     This is confusing, has been poorly announced, I still have yet to see a blog where people who don't sit on forums can actually understand whats going on.   

There are TONS of projects out there people focus time, when you have a project like Bitshares that is under medium-long term development, many people will not look for a month or more waiting until they hear "news" that gives them a reason to check their stake.     Anyone doing that with Bitshares will find they missed an opportunity.      I'm trying to help get the word out, Daniel and Charles Evans wrote an editorial we just published at LTB but even that article does not explain the ACTUAL situation, which really annoys me even further.

They talk about lots of use cases that are far in the future, but unless I misunderstood the post last week about the Bitshares snapshot and launch, I believe future invictus chains will derive from BITSHARES which were derived from PROTOSHARES rather than BITSHARES being derived from PROTOSHARES and then PROTOSHAREs continuing to derive future chains for its holders.    Did I misunderstand this?   Did this change?  If it did, thats a BIG DEAL because it means you're an idiot if you hold protoshares rather than maximizing your bitshares.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 22, 2014, 05:45:52 pm
I believe future invictus chains will derive from BITSHARES which were derived from PROTOSHARES rather than BITSHARES being derived from PROTOSHARES and then PROTOSHAREs continuing to derive future chains for its holders.    Did I misunderstand this?   Did this change?  If it did, thats a BIG DEAL because it means you're an idiot if you hold protoshares rather than maximizing your bitshares.

Only other BitShares X chains will be derived from BitShares XT. These are all the assets-backed-by-prediction-market variations, like with interest or different consensus algo or other small feature set change experiments.
Other invictus chains will be derived from AGS/PTS still. Not 100% sure but I imagine something like DomainShares would not be derived from BTS XT.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 05:51:59 pm
When the deal gets better for someone, it gets worse for someone else. 

If I have a company and people pay for computer hardware, electricity, malware developers, mining pools, cost of acquiring and putting setting everything up, etc. to get a share in my company then the only winner is the third party services. Why? Because the money going into these services do not add any value. Why do they not add value? Because the type of security that they help provide can be replaced with a type of security that costs nothing.

With the introduction of AGS, PTS holders could add value to the company directly by investing in AGS. Now suddenly Invictus is a first-mover in the realm of acquiring serious funding. With the old PTS model Invictus was backed by a tiny team of coders with a few dollars up their sleeve. With AGS we're now sitting on PTS backed by a growing team of coders with millions of dollars to spend on development, legal issues, promotion, etc.

If you don't think Bitshares will be worth anything, then just sell some PTS now (they're as high as BTC was at 1000+), and then buy them back after the snapshot. Or use the money to buy Bitshares after launch. From an investor perspective the ROI is off the charts every way.

You may have a point if you discuss promises, etc. but that's another discussion. As far as ROI goes I don't see how PTS holders are losing out. Their company were the first to replace a ridiculous business model with an ingenious and profitable one. We'll see in a few months time though.. This is a rapidly evolving field and everybody will constantly be making mistakes.

Things do change very fast, which is why it's so important to set up a deal that has room to manuever.  When Invictus jumped from 90% mined to 100% premined, did they leave themselves any room?  I don't think they did.  When AGS was first proposed I argued that while it was OK to devote 10% of Bitshares to AGS, it was crazy to completely remove mining because the deal had involved 90% of Bitshares being distributed through non-monetary means whereas now it was 100% monetary to buy in.

Invictus definitely wins, but everybody else?  Depends on how much you're paying attention.   Was that the deal people signed on for?  That they acquire the coins and then have to read the forums weekly to see when the deal changes so they can quickly respond before other people have an opportunity to protect themselves?   Change is the enemy, and the visible cost is the tip of the iceberg.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 05:53:29 pm
I believe future invictus chains will derive from BITSHARES which were derived from PROTOSHARES rather than BITSHARES being derived from PROTOSHARES and then PROTOSHAREs continuing to derive future chains for its holders.    Did I misunderstand this?   Did this change?  If it did, thats a BIG DEAL because it means you're an idiot if you hold protoshares rather than maximizing your bitshares.

Only other BitShares X chains will be derived from BitShares XT. These are all the assets-backed-by-prediction-market variations, like with interest or different consensus algo or other small feature set change experiments.
Other invictus chains will be derived from AGS/PTS still. Not 100% sure but I imagine something like DomainShares would not be derived from BTS XT.

My point exactly.   We are six days from the snapshot and even you, who are on the forums every day and posting in most forums do not really know whats going on with regards to future allocations.   That uncertainty makes it IMPOSSIBLE for a fair price to be established.  This is a joke.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: dirktadwater on February 22, 2014, 06:06:26 pm
Adam, that was exactly what I was thinking. I actually heard about PTS on your show, and bought a bunch after hearing about it. Lo and behold I come back a couple months later and Invictus has essentially halved any investing advantage I had by buying back then. Needless to say I'm a little ticked off.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: CLains on February 22, 2014, 06:25:56 pm
If the disagreement is a matter of economic judgement, then you're disagreeing primarily with how to run the company to achieve maximum returns, rather than disagreeing with how to allocate shares fairly.

1. Not going back on their word.
2. Allocating shares fairly.
3. Maximizing the value proposition.

Furthermore, are we investing in Invictus as trusting their judgement to maximize the value proposition, or are we investing in Invictus to complete a preordained scheme that we believe will maximize the value proposition?

Most people don't understand Bitshares and trust in the judgement of the people developing it. Of course if we can communicate ideas that will improve the judgement of Invictus then we should do so for our own sake, but then we should focus on improving what we perceive to be wrong.

From what I can tell you're arguing against a mix of the above three components. As an investor, I'd like to see you suggest alternatives that do not lower the value proposition. And if people disagree on whether or not it lowers the value proposition we're then in the realm of argumentation. As an interested participant, I'd like to see you suggest how Invictus should proceed from here.

Dwelling on past mistakes are only relevant as guide to avoiding future mistakes. And better than telling people what to avoid is to suggest alternatives that are superior.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 06:28:37 pm
This all leaves me completely and utterly confused... if I keep my PTS, will I continue to get shares of every future DAC? or is that only for AGS holders now?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 06:30:50 pm
This all leaves me completely and utterly confused... if I keep my PTS, will I continue to get shares of every future DAC? or is that only for AGS holders now?

AGS and PTS are on par in this regard, though you can't sell AGS with the tradeoff being you get a lot more BTSX from AGS.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 06:31:59 pm
This all leaves me completely and utterly confused... if I keep my PTS, will I continue to get shares of every future DAC? or is that only for AGS holders now?

AGS and PTS are on par in this regard, though you can't sell AGS with the tradeoff being you get a lot more BTSX from AGS.

So basically if your whole purpose of PTS was to make and hold, for returns on future DAC's... its actually pointless to keep PTS and you might as well get AGS since you get more of every future DAC?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 22, 2014, 06:39:56 pm
If you followed I3's advice, your expected returns kept going up, just not optimally. Could have been better. I think it's hard to be fair when the expected value of the thing as a whole jumps by orders of magnitudes. AGS should have come first, I3 definitely fucked up with PTS and they admitted it and made it better.

This was mentioned elsewhere but it comes down to whether or not you think it is bad to take away unrealized opportunity. When I3 announced an early snapshot they took away the chance for your PTS to earn you even more BTS (another 2.5x multiplier, when AGS:PTS was cheap, after the previous 5x which all PTS owners got). Remember prior to the announcement the market was predicting a much later snapshot (from PTS/AGS ratio). They never caused the PTS to give you less value out of future DACs, which is why I'm not too concerned.

You're a champion for the guys throwing in their support but not necessarily their time and attention. I think it's a bit irresponsible for I3 to be collecting money from that audience at this stage. It seems like nobody is in a rush to help make things user-friendly until after the snapshot.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: bitbro on February 22, 2014, 06:43:15 pm
@AdamBLevine.  If he wants to do real investigative journalism he'd go back and source quotes from the forum. 

I, for one, believe in and trust Invictus.  They have only continued to maximize value for me as a shareholder throughout the process, from November to the current moment, and I believe they will continue to do so.  Granted, I was not a lazy investor, and I followed my intuition, my gut, and the advice of the Invictus team.  Those who did not have the wherewithal to invest as best as possible, I don't feel sorry for. This is the real world, don't expect me or anyone to hold your hand and walk you into every great investment maneuver. 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.


 +5%
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 06:45:57 pm
I wonder if buying PTS right now is that great a deal, especially with prices around 0.03 BTC. Lets say you buy PTS now which essentially means you are valuing BTSX at 0.023 BTC. With 4 million BTSX right at the start it means a market cap of some $50m!!

Of course, we all here believe BTSX will be worth a lot in the long run, but initially prices will be way lower than what you will be getting with PTS right now. A lot of people have donated to AGS when 40-50 BTCs were being donated a day; which means they bought BTSX at some 0.0027 BTC. I would expect big sell offs to at least recover the initial investments when price rises a few times.

I also expect PTS to be cheaper too in early March, unless I3 intervenes. Bytemaster has already alluded to the possibility of PTS market manipulation by I3 which is a very scary prospect.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 06:50:11 pm
This all leaves me completely and utterly confused... if I keep my PTS, will I continue to get shares of every future DAC? or is that only for AGS holders now?

AGS and PTS are on par in this regard, though you can't sell AGS with the tradeoff being you get a lot more BTSX from AGS.

So basically if your whole purpose of PTS was to make and hold, for returns on future DAC's... its actually pointless to keep PTS and you might as well get AGS since you get more of every future DAC?

There may be some 3rd party DACs which may decide honour PTS but not AGS.

You get more of BTSX - 2,5x time in fact; but not the future ones since AGS is going to keep generating after 28th February. Remember, by future DACs, I mean entirely different DACs. All the BTSX chains which are going to be released will follow the initial BTS XT and so, yes, AGS is much better.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 07:01:04 pm
If the disagreement is a matter of economic judgement, then you're disagreeing primarily with how to run the company to achieve maximum returns, rather than disagreeing with how to allocate shares fairly.

1. Not going back on their word.
2. Allocating shares fairly.
3. Maximizing the value proposition.

Furthermore, are we investing in Invictus as trusting their judgement to maximize the value proposition, or are we investing in Invictus to complete a preordained scheme that we believe will maximize the value proposition?

Most people don't understand Bitshares and trust in the judgement of the people developing it. Of course if we can communicate ideas that will improve the judgement of Invictus then we should do so for our own sake, but then we should focus on improving what we perceive to be wrong.

From what I can tell you're arguing against a mix of the above three components. As an investor, I'd like to see you suggest alternatives that do not lower the value proposition. And if people disagree on whether or not it lowers the value proposition we're then in the realm of argumentation. As an interested participant, I'd like to see you suggest how Invictus should proceed from here.

Dwelling on past mistakes are only relevant as guide to avoiding future mistakes. And better than telling people what to avoid is to suggest alternatives that are superior.

1 - Start an official invictus blog where all announcements go.
2 - Determine the FINAL Deal with regards to Angelshares, Bitshares, and Protoshares.  How they will be distributed, who gets what and at what rates.   And then never change it again
3 - If Invictus actually wants to listen to their customers and investors, they should set a rule that all proposed changes are announced and discussed for two weeks before the decision is made.  If Invictus wants to do what they want, they should stop making the claim.    The trouble with using a forum as the arbiter of decision is you only get people who have time to live on a forum making the decisions.  As someone who himself sits on forums with a bunch of my time, that is not ideal.  See point 1.
4 -
You're a champion for the guys throwing in their support but not necessarily their time and attention. I think it's a bit irresponsible for I3 to be collecting money from that audience at this stage. It seems like nobody is in a rush to help make things user-friendly until after the snapshot.

Yeah, no. I am explaining that things are not so simple as you would like them to be and that these unexpected changes have meaningful repercussions for people who supported invictus IN THE WAY INVICTUS ASKED THEM TO who now are getting screwed.   The deal they signed on for was as the only way to acquire BTS before, and now it's the worst way to acquire BTS before.   How do you not register this as a problem?  Do you think Invictus only has the couple hundred people who have invested in them that even read these forums?   

Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: bitbro on February 22, 2014, 07:05:25 pm
AGS has made PTS far more valuable, regardless.

 +5%
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 07:08:12 pm

There may be some 3rd party DACs which may decide honour PTS but not AGS.

You get more of BTSX - 2,5x time in fact; but not the future ones since AGS is going to keep generating after 28th February. Remember, by future DACs, I mean entirely different DACs. All the BTSX chains which are going to be released will follow the initial BTS XT and so, yes, AGS is much better.

so essentially... all my PTS could be worthless (as a hold in theory) for future DACs because they won't be forced to honor what they said they would have to honor... they can just pick and choose with the honor system and I have no clear future understanding and will again have to go through this process of guess what they'll do or not do and change and not change every other day???

I mean getting started I was told, PTS would get you shares in everything, then I see AGS now gets half the shares, then I see AGS was cheaper to get than PTS, then I see future DACs may or may not honor PTS or AGS or both or one or who knows what they will do... how can anyone trust in something that has no rules or clear path... the path has changed week to week! and all my informations comes from rumors and maybes from folks in a forum!

I finally saw they planned to launch an official website on march 21st... should that not be the FIRST thing they do BEFORE they decide to do all the rest... I can't even get updates and clear information on their current website... all speculations and maybes from strangers in a forum and I have no clue who is a developer or not... SO FRUSTRATING.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 07:12:17 pm
@AdamBLevine.  If he wants to do real investigative journalism he'd go back and source quotes from the forum. 

I, for one, believe in and trust Invictus.  They have only continued to maximize value for me as a shareholder throughout the process, from November to the current moment, and I believe they will continue to do so.  Granted, I was not a lazy investor, and I followed my intuition, my gut, and the advice of the Invictus team.  Those who did not have the wherewithal to invest as best as possible, I don't feel sorry for. This is the real world, don't expect me or anyone to hold your hand and walk you into every great investment maneuver. 


I'm posting in a forum thread, when did I claim that I was doing *anything* journalistic here?   Or is it just that I'm not allowed to be an investor myself since I have a public presence?   You'll notice I'm not posting an article detailing all of my frustrations with Invictus but I guess if you'd prefer me to take off my investor hat and put on my journalist hat there's plenty of meat on these bones.    You may view this as an attack but I'm actually trying to help.   

Quote
I, for one, believe in and trust Invictus.  They have only continued to maximize value for me as a shareholder throughout the process, from November to the current moment, and I believe they will continue to do so.  Granted, I was not a lazy investor, and I followed my intuition, my gut, and the advice of the Invictus team.  Those who did not have the wherewithal to invest as best as possible, I don't feel sorry for. This is the real world, don't expect me or anyone to hold your hand and walk you into every great investment maneuver. 
You'll notice I'm on the forum quite a bit too, *I* am not suffering from this development.  *I* have profited.   But *I* recognize that my profit comes at the cost of those who thought they could just invest and then come back when there was actually something ready for them to use as a normal user.    What % of Invictus's investors do you think that is?   I bet you a whole lot of them came from my discussions with Daniel and strong recommendations of his product.  So it is not myself I am concerned about, it is my audience who I chose to expose to this project that is now a very different arrangement than when they bought in.  And they did buy in.

Here's the most important thing you said

Quote
I, for one, believe in and trust Invictus.
I used to (trust invictus), and I very much consider Dan a friend (although after this maybe not) but I am do not think it is trustworthy or professional behavior to make a plan, sell a product and then renegotiate the deal unilaterally without the means to get that message out to the people who already made decisions based on the original deal.   You trust Invictus because they're going to make you money, there's really no doubt about that in my mind - they will make money.

But frankly, making money in cryptocurrency is the easy part.  Building a reputation, delivering a product and sticking to your word even when it's difficult - those are things that are hard to come by and far more important in the medium-long run than how much profit you can generate for your first investors.   And in this case, the first investors are being screwed because Invictus didn't get any money from them.  They can choose to give their funds to Invictus in exchange for the better deal, but that actually REWARDS them for changing the deal which makes them more likely to do it again in the future. 

Tell me i'm wrong
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 07:16:40 pm

There may be some 3rd party DACs which may decide honour PTS but not AGS.

You get more of BTSX - 2,5x time in fact; but not the future ones since AGS is going to keep generating after 28th February. Remember, by future DACs, I mean entirely different DACs. All the BTSX chains which are going to be released will follow the initial BTS XT and so, yes, AGS is much better.

so essentially... all my PTS could be worthless (as a hold in theory) for future DACs because they won't be forced to honor what they said they would have to honor... they can just pick and choose with the honor system and I have no clear future understanding and will again have to go through this process of guess what they'll do or not do and change and not change every other day???

I mean getting started I was told, PTS would get you shares in everything, then I see AGS now gets half the shares, then I see AGS was cheaper to get than PTS, then I see future DACs may or may not honor PTS or AGS or both or one or who knows what they will do... how can anyone trust in something that has no rules or clear path... the path has changed week to week! and all my informations comes from rumors and maybes from folks in a forum!

I finally saw they planned to launch an official website on march 21st... should that not be the FIRST thing they do BEFORE they decide to do all the rest... I can't even get updates and clear information on their current website... all speculations and maybes from strangers in a forum and I have no clue who is a developer or not... SO FRUSTRATING.

Instead of getting all worked up and typing big replies, you could have spent the time to actually look through these forums. In anycase, I will try to summarise it.

1> PTS gives 1.3 BTSXT, while AGS gives 3.33 BTSXT. All the future BTSX chains will be based on BTSXT so AGS is way more profitable if you are mainly interested in BTSX.
2> All the non-BTSX DACs by Invictus will allot atleast 10% each to PTS and AGS. By the time those come out I assume all the PTS/AGS will have been mined/released so you will get the same amount.

PTS deal is actually sweeter than what was promised earlier. Its just that if you would have hung around you could have made an even better deal. You still can if you step back and take some time to think and come up with a good strategy. Keep in mind the possibility that there will be 4m BTSX on the market right at the start, a lot of which would have been acquired for as low as 0.0025 BTC.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 07:32:29 pm
When I read Adam's arguments, I realise, even if I consider only my selfish profits, that as a long term PTS holder I may not be getting a better deal. The argument that is rolled out (by me too) is that the jump from 10% to 50% means that PTS holders are getting rewarded.

However, in the original scheme, only 400k BTSX would have been available at the start. In the new scheme, there will be 10 times more. Sure, PTS holders got 5x the original allotment but then they have to contend with 10x the initial supply.

So, not only the initial supply is huge, PTS holders will also have to contend with BTSX owners who have gotten them for even less than 0.0025 BTC in some cases through AGS route. Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run - I dunno.

Personally, I am covered. I have PTS, AGS as well as BTC (to buy cheap PTS and/or BTSX in March); and I do believe that I3 has the best of intentions in all these changes. This is new territorry, and it was difficult to get the right scheme from the start.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 07:42:22 pm
Btw, its none of my business, but converting 1 PTS for 0.9 AGS (as has been happening) may not be the best of strategies.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 07:45:57 pm
Instead of getting all worked up and typing big replies, you could have spent the time to actually look through these forums. In anycase, I will try to summarise it.

1> PTS gives 1.3 BTSXT, while AGS gives 3.33 BTSXT. All the future BTSX chains will be based on BTSXT so AGS is way more profitable if you are mainly interested in BTSX.
2> All the non-BTSX DACs by Invictus will allot atleast 10% each to PTS and AGS. By the time those come out I assume all the PTS/AGS will have been mined/released so you will get the same amount.

PTS deal is actually sweeter than what was promised earlier. Its just that if you would have hung around you could have made an even better deal. You still can if you step back and take some time to think and come up with a good strategy. Keep in mind the possibility that there will be 4m BTSX on the market right at the start, a lot of which would have been acquired for as low as 0.0025 BTC.

I have read all of those postings... but they are the same regurgitated posts from people without supplying factual basis for how or why this information is accurate and proven.... its just one rumor passed and retold by another... there is nothing on the invictus.io website to confirm ANYYYYY of this... its all left for wild rumors and rampant speculation that are not factual...

my point being... WHY IS THERE NO CENTRAL WEBSITE WITH CLEAR AND CONCISE INFORMATION TO BE USED AS THE FACTUAL BASIS FOR WHAT WILL OCCUR...

I go to protoshares.net = following SOME links sends me to forums where it says PTS will be 1:1 (and many links don't work)

I go to invictus-innovations.com = tells me to go to Invictus.io

I go to Invictus.io  = now I start clicking around and eventually get to something that says I can get 10% of all future DACs and points me to the official forums, where I now start reading conflicting answers, some which seem posted by moderators who state conflicting information from what is being posted today... okay which do I believe again?

check the wiki = nothing, oh wait an FAQ on it... great now I've got 3 more questions after reading that...

at this point you go back to the forums and start asking questions, where you get different answers on what when how why...

go back to the website and read about how my "donation" will be used... wait am I donating money or am I buying shares in something... in language translation donation means something different to me, than to you... donate in my country means I give something and get nothing... so I clearly don't want to donate, but on the other side of the screen it says I earn them... so am I donating, am I earning, am I investing... what am I doing... is this just legal wording to bypass some measures?

http://invictus.io/bitshares-ags.php

then it says on the same page... ""That said, these are no-strings-attached donations and should not be construed to place any legal obligation on Invictus Innovations to provide anything in return for these donations."" so then this is a donation and I have no guarantee of receiving any AGS after all? so its not earning or investing...

I WANTTTT to understand and know how it works, but there is SO MUCH conflicting information and words used to describe the same thing... you can't call a transaction, a donation, an investment, or earning all at once...

I just want a single source, a single page, a single set of guidelines as to what they follow... "click here for only legitimate answer"... all I have right now is speculations, misinformation, and no central source of fact... read the forums yourself if you want me to read them, people give different answers to the same questions, I know I've read thousands of messages trying ot make heads or tails of it.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 07:49:38 pm
When I read Adam's arguments, I realise, even if I consider only my selfish profits, that as a long term PTS holder I may not be getting a better deal. The argument that is rolled out (by me too) is that the jump from 10% to 50% means that PTS holders are getting rewarded.

However, in the original scheme, only 400k BTSX would have been available at the start. In the new scheme, there will be 10 times more. Sure, PTS holders got 5x the original allotment but then they have to contend with 10x the initial supply.

So, not only the initial supply is huge, PTS holders will also have to contend with BTSX owners who have gotten them for even less than 0.0025 BTC in some cases through AGS route. Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run - I dunno.

Personally, I am covered. I have PTS, AGS as well as BTC (to buy cheap PTS and/or BTSX in March); and I do believe that I3 has the best of intentions in all these changes. This is new territorry, and it was difficult to get the right scheme from the start.

Exactly.  Guys like us are fine, this IS a win for those who understand the situation enough to position themselves accordingly, but how to best do that is VERY confusing

Btw, its none of my business, but converting 1 PTS for 0.9 AGS (as has been happening) may not be the best of strategies.

Maybe!  Then again, maybe it's better to buy ALL AGS so you can maximize your BTS, sell half your BTS (still have more left over than just getting BTS from PTS) and use the proceeds to buy your original PTS back at the deflated price.   The whole situation is so confusing I really don't know what the best way to protect yourself is.    It's my understanding that AGS and PTS were being amalgamated into BTS for future-chain purposes because otherwise you have to manage AGS and PTS investors differently.  Am I mistaken?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 07:53:28 pm
[quote author=Darkbane link=topic=3099.
There may be some 3rd party DACs which may decide honour PTS but not AGS.

You get more of BTSX - 2,5x time in fact; but not the future ones since AGS is going to keep generating after 28th February. Remember, by future DACs, I mean entirely different DACs. All the BTSX chains which are going to be released will follow the initial BTS XT and so, yes, AGS is much better.

See you just gave me misinformation and speculation in the forums showing my point that there is no one place to get clear and concise information... because on the website it says the information below... however when reading forums I read messages from people who seem to be moderators which to my understanding would mean they are employees or knowledge people, and they even say one time they can't force a DAC to honor this, and then this information says that DACs will have to follow this... then its called a donation, then a share, then an earnings... you see where I am coming from with my frustration... they don't even seem to know what it is some days... and with it clearly having changed, they needed to go remove those threads, or modify all the messages stating what it is... this is why one central location for information is critical... the word "should" below means maybe it will maybe it won't... then it goes on to say that it will "require" them to... so is it maybe, maybe not, or required... I don't know!

(you can't tell me I am investing in a cow and then I show up and two chickens are before me... I wanted the cow in your advertisement)


At least 10% of the BitShares should be allocated to holders of BitShares PTS.
At least 10% of the BitShares should be allocated to holders of BitShares AGS.
The remaining BitShares should be customized to the needs of each BitShares chain.

This emerging social consensus and resulting network effect will be further reinforced by the Social Consensus Software License which will require each derivative software product to initialize its blockchain according to this consensus.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 07:54:27 pm
I just want a single source, a single page, a single set of guidelines as to what they follow... "click here for only legitimate answer"... all I have right now is speculations, misinformation, and no central source of fact... read the forums yourself if you want me to read them, people give different answers to the same questions, I know I've read thousands of messages trying ot make heads or tails of it.

Heh, I can sympathise with that. Even in the last half hour, my opinion changed somewhat :D
All I can say is build your own investing strategy. I have personally settled on holding all three - PTS, AGS and BTC. Sure, it may not end up giving me the best return but I should be covered in this confusing landscape.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 07:59:47 pm
I just want a single source, a single page, a single set of guidelines as to what they follow... "click here for only legitimate answer"... all I have right now is speculations, misinformation, and no central source of fact... read the forums yourself if you want me to read them, people give different answers to the same questions, I know I've read thousands of messages trying ot make heads or tails of it.

Heh, I can sympathise with that. Even in the last half hour, my opinion changed somewhat :D
All I can say is build your own investing strategy. I have personally settled on holding all three - PTS, AGS and BTC. Sure, it may not end up giving me the best return but I should be covered in this confusing landscape.

I also see you said I will get 2.5x the BTS XT than before... what is BTS XT... this is the first time I am reading about this now... I thought I was getting BitSharesX... you say 2.5x someone else says 1.3x someone else says 1.1x all messages posted within 24 hours... did they change name of the new currency already?!
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 08:02:41 pm
Btw, its none of my business, but converting 1 PTS for 0.9 AGS (as has been happening) may not be the best of strategies.

Maybe!  Then again, maybe it's better to buy ALL AGS so you can maximize your BTS, sell half your BTS (still have more left over than just getting BTS from PTS) and use the proceeds to buy your original PTS back at the deflated price.   The whole situation is so confusing I really don't know what the best way to protect yourself is.    It's my understanding that AGS and PTS were being amalgamated into BTS for future-chain purposes because otherwise you have to manage AGS and PTS investors differently.  Am I mistaken?

I meant PTS to AGS directly. I would say sell PTS for BTC and maybe buy AGS with some of those BTC - BTC/AGS is usually more profitable than PTS/AGS, but that again is a gamble.

I have a feeling that the initial BTSX price will surprise people. Keeping some BTC just in case maybe a good move rather than dumping all PTS into AGS.

I don't know what the best strategy is. As I said earlier, I decided to keep hold of all 3 - PTS, AGS and BTC; though I am having a hard time justifying my PTS holdings with the tasty market price.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 08:05:40 pm
There may be some 3rd party DACs which may decide honour PTS but not AGS.

You get more of BTSX - 2,5x time in fact; but not the future ones since AGS is going to keep generating after 28th February. Remember, by future DACs, I mean entirely different DACs. All the BTSX chains which are going to be released will follow the initial BTS XT and so, yes, AGS is much better.
See you just gave me misinformation and speculation in the forums showing my point that there is no one place to get clear and concise information... because on the website it says the information below... however when reading forums I read messages from people who seem to be moderators which to my understanding would mean they are employees or knowledge people, and they even say one time they can't force a DAC to honor this, and then this information says that DACs will have to follow this... then its called a donation, then a share, then an earnings... you see where I am coming from with my frustration... they don't even seem to know what it is some days... and with it clearly having changed, they needed to go remove those threads, or modify all the messages stating what it is... this is why one central location for information is critical... the word "should" below means maybe it will maybe it won't... then it goes on to say that it will "require" them to... so is it maybe, maybe not, or required... I don't know!

(you can't tell me I am investing in a cow and then I show up and two chickens are before me... I wanted the cow in your advertisement)


At least 10% of the BitShares should be allocated to holders of BitShares PTS.
At least 10% of the BitShares should be allocated to holders of BitShares AGS.
The remaining BitShares should be customized to the needs of each BitShares chain.

This emerging social consensus and resulting network effect will be further reinforced by the Social Consensus Software License which will require each derivative software product to initialize its blockchain according to this consensus.

What misinformation is that? You are getting 50%, which, as you may realise, covers the 'at least 10%' clause.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 08:08:07 pm
I just want a single source, a single page, a single set of guidelines as to what they follow... "click here for only legitimate answer"... all I have right now is speculations, misinformation, and no central source of fact... read the forums yourself if you want me to read them, people give different answers to the same questions, I know I've read thousands of messages trying ot make heads or tails of it.

Heh, I can sympathise with that. Even in the last half hour, my opinion changed somewhat :D
All I can say is build your own investing strategy. I have personally settled on holding all three - PTS, AGS and BTC. Sure, it may not end up giving me the best return but I should be covered in this confusing landscape.

I also see you said I will get 2.5x the BTS XT than before... what is BTS XT... this is the first time I am reading about this now... I thought I was getting BitSharesX... you say 2.5x someone else says 1.3x someone else says 1.1x all messages posted within 24 hours... did they change name of the new currency already?!

Bitshares XT is what is being released, but there may be three other chains that release from Bitshares XT.  This post seems to still be sticky'd as a roadmap, but i'm not sure it's accurate currently https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=2940.0
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 08:09:16 pm
someone directed me to a link... http://invictus-innovations.com/social-consensus/

so reading all that (which I have posted below) it says PTS shareholders will get 10% of all DACs in one point, which means AGS shareholders get nothing for some DACs... then below that it says there will be an even PTS 10% and AGS 10% for DACs built upon this OTHER platform... so PTS they are saying should get 10% no matter if it was assisted with AGS money or not, and AGS only gets 10% if it comes from that funding support... but have AGS shareholders been clearly informed they will only receive shares if the DAC was created on this "BCSL" platform? or are they under the impression they will get shares of everything too? I have so many more questions than I began with...


====================== website copy and paste below ==================


Statement of Social Consensus

Google defines a Social Contract as “an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits.” Another term that means the same thing is Social Consensus.  We use the terms interchangeably, but prefer Consensus because it is simply more accurate.   It also emphasizes the two-way nature of the consensus.   It is beyond our control to prevent a copycat from forking our open source code in a way that fails to honor this consensus.  It is up to the market to reject this, or not.

BitShares PTS (a.k.a "proto-shares") is a digital currency just like Bitcoin.  The difference is that PTS is backed by something of more tangible value - the future potential of an entire new  industry of Decentralized Autonomous Companies (DACs),  The PTS Social Consensus simply states that holders of PTS will give preference to DACs that initialize their internal money supplies proportionally to the current distribution of the PTS currency.  Savvy DAC developers do this to gain the rapid support of PTS holders who represent the overwhelming majority of knowledgable early adopters of DAC-backed currencies.  It is thus a more targeted give-away than the typical mining-based lottery system used by most crypto-currencies.  It targets established early adopters who can help get the new DAC adopted quickly.

Our first formal statement of the PTS Social Consensus was that we would support only DACs that honor BitShares PTS.  This was first published in our October newsletter and again in our forum on Nov 3, prior to genesis on Nov 5, 2013:

At a DAC’s pre-published launch time, the DAC’s genesis block shall be initialized
to precisely match the current unspent outputs of its corresponding PTS blockchain.

A week later we informally generalized this to at least 10% of all DACs we support. 

All chains shall be derived from PTS,
with a 1:1 mapping and 10% of the ultimate money supply of that chain.

The 10% requirement is a minimum, since any number greater than that also satisfies the consensus.  The 1:1 mapping and 10% minimum together set an upper limit on the number of shares a DAC may allocate.  If only 1.5M PTS exist at DAC release, then 15M is the derived upper limit to number of shares for that DAC.  Developers may equivalently exercise the right to scale the share count to the needs of each DAC while preserving percentages for all stakeholders.

In this document, we are formally endorsing an integrated BitShares Social Consensus for PTS, AGS and all derived BitShares DACs. This consensus is further defined in the BitShares Consensus Software License (BCSL).  We also clean up the language to better comply with the laws of our jurisdiction. To that end, Invictus will only endorse, support and promote DACs that meet all of the following applicable consensus requirements:

For all third party DACs:

Allocate at least 10% of its internal money supply to PTS holders at genesis.

For DACs built on the BCSL platform provided through AGS donations:

Allocate at least 10% of its internal money supply to PTS holders at genesis.
Allocate at least 10% of its internal money supply to AGS holders at genesis.
Allocate the last 80% at the discretion of each DAC developer.

We endorse 50-50 for the first BitShares DAC to equally honor mining-lottery and patron-donor schools of thought. 

For the first BitShares DAC:

Allocate 50% of its internal money supply to PTS holders at genesis.
Allocate 50% of its internal money supply to AGS holders at genesis.

The total internal money supply shall be scaled to 4 million shares, equally divided between the two schools.

This makes all of BitShares early supporters “official BitShares distributors” for those who arrive later!
We can't think of a more fair and decentralized way to make shares of the money supply available to them.

We hope you agree.

Specifications for the last 80% of other future DACs will vary with developer according to their business model and marketing strategies and shall be specified prior to their genesis.   Until they are defined formally on this page, all forum discussion is for the purpose of reaching consensus, and any sharing of current thinking there does not constitute a commitment to any specific course of action.

A formal statement of legal terms and conditions may be found here.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 22, 2014, 08:10:06 pm
I just want a single source, a single page, a single set of guidelines as to what they follow... "click here for only legitimate answer"... all I have right now is speculations, misinformation, and no central source of fact... read the forums yourself if you want me to read them, people give different answers to the same questions, I know I've read thousands of messages trying ot make heads or tails of it.

Heh, I can sympathise with that. Even in the last half hour, my opinion changed somewhat :D
All I can say is build your own investing strategy. I have personally settled on holding all three - PTS, AGS and BTC. Sure, it may not end up giving me the best return but I should be covered in this confusing landscape.

I also see you said I will get 2.5x the BTS XT than before... what is BTS XT... this is the first time I am reading about this now... I thought I was getting BitSharesX... you say 2.5x someone else says 1.3x someone else says 1.1x all messages posted within 24 hours... did they change name of the new currency already?!

3.33/1.3 = 2.5

As for BTSXT https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=2940.0  See, you didn't really go through hundreds of posts ;)
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 08:16:13 pm
Bitshares XT is what is being released, but there may be three other chains that release from Bitshares XT.  This post seems to still be sticky'd as a roadmap, but i'm not sure it's accurate currently https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=2940.0

So I can completely ignore their official website as BitSharesX is now BitSharesXT ???

and BitSharesXT will have 3 DACs associated with it? and the only way to get those is through BitSharexXT...

so PTS becomes BitSharexXT... and now only BTX can get rewards from future DACs, giving PTS directly no value in this spinoff as they say the only way is through the BTX

so essentially they are replacing PTS with BTX to spinoff another angelshares investment expected in that... but original shareholders will not receive direct DAC compensation?

so a DAC on a DAC with no link back to avoid double paying of AGS, PTS, and BTX?

I'm not even making sense to myself now...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 08:20:07 pm
I also see you said I will get 2.5x the BTS XT than before... what is BTS XT... this is the first time I am reading about this now... I thought I was getting BitSharesX... you say 2.5x someone else says 1.3x someone else says 1.1x all messages posted within 24 hours... did they change name of the new currency already?!

3.33/1.3 = 2.5

As for BTSXT https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=2940.0  See, you didn't really go through hundreds of posts ;)
[/quote]

I have read thousands of messages... how many hours can I spend trying to make heads or tails of ALL these changes and variations and spinoffs they make...

I started with PTS, it was supposed to become whatever the final name was... BitsharesX... now its XT and then 3 other things only linked to that

if you can't mine BTX... what is the sense of even having it?!?! why not just remove the middle man there and spinoff the other DACs onto PTS instead of adding this 50/50 split among PTS AGS... it makes no logical sense... except I see they want more angelshare investing in it... so they just want to do another round of money grabbing on top of this round that still has well over 100 days of "donations" to complete...

Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: onceuponatime on February 22, 2014, 08:22:39 pm

You'll notice I'm on the forum quite a bit too, *I* am not suffering from this development.  *I* have profited.   But *I* recognize that my profit comes at the cost of those who thought they could just invest and then come back when there was actually something ready for them to use as a normal user.    What % of Invictus's investors do you think that is?   I bet you a whole lot of them came from my discussions with Daniel and strong recommendations of his product.  So it is not myself I am concerned about, it is my audience who I chose to expose to this project that is now a very different arrangement than when they bought in.  And they did buy in.

Adam, I came to be an investor in PTS because of hearing your interview with Dan on Lets Talk Bitcoin, and because of reading the articles by Dan and Stan on your site. I was a donator to your program in its very earliest days when you had a tiny audience. I am also one of the very very few people who actually donated to the articles written by Dan and Stan on your site.

I am therefore in a quandry as to your objections to the business decisions made by Invictus. Would you rather the endeavor to have crashed and burned, but to have stuck tightly to the original plan? With the flawed and unexpected results of the release of the PTS blockhain, without changes the experiment would have been over. (and these absentee investors you are worried about would have lost everything)

Regarding these investors that you are worried about, the ones who you say invested and then went away to come back at some future date when their investment will have magically paid off, there would be nothing to come back to without changes to the original release plans.

I consider the way that Invictus has implemented its fundraising to be brilliant and innovative. I, like you, have done well by staying informed and keeping an eye on my investment despite my utter lack of technical savvy. I don't expect the Government, or Big Brother, or even Adam Levine to protect me if I choose to invest unconsciously and not stay fully informed. (recall that when you complained about us not being kept informed daily as to Keyhotee development, I was 100% with you. Now how would daily updates be of any use to anyone who "thought they could just invest and then come back when there was actually something ready"?)

 
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: santaclause102 on February 22, 2014, 08:34:56 pm
I just want a single source, a single page, a single set of guidelines as to what they follow... "click here for only legitimate answer"... all I have right now is speculations, misinformation, and no central source of fact... read the forums yourself if you want me to read them, people give different answers to the same questions, I know I've read thousands of messages trying ot make heads or tails of it.

Heh, I can sympathise with that. Even in the last half hour, my opinion changed somewhat :D
All I can say is build your own investing strategy. I have personally settled on holding all three - PTS, AGS and BTC. Sure, it may not end up giving me the best return but I should be covered in this confusing landscape.

I also see you said I will get 2.5x the BTS XT than before... what is BTS XT... this is the first time I am reading about this now... I thought I was getting BitSharesX... you say 2.5x someone else says 1.3x someone else says 1.1x all messages posted within 24 hours... did they change name of the new currency already?!

haha it can realy be confusing. I think the reason is that with any optimization that balances different aspects the complexity increases.
The reason that there is no one final answer is that that depends on how things play out. Also many things are interdependent (AGS price is effected by PTS price and so on).
It might have been easier if there was no Proof of Work coin IPO (PTS) so I3 would have had more funds to increase shareholder value. But they also learned along the way which is only human. The idea for AGS might also have come along with changing from POW for Bitshare to POS.
Bytemaster/I3 didnt figure out a final product / investment oportunity and then presented it. They just put everything out to the comunity as their conception changed. I think it is impossible to stay ahead of the game / being most competetive in this business and at the same time have a plan that is fixed for the next year.
This strategy (adapting and comunicating it openly) I think is best for being most competetive. And you have to say that this strategy honoured those that dedicted their time and donated early (which helped to pay bounties and facilitate the Miami conference and gave feedback for all kinds of issues). Stan often said that it is always about balancing everything and that is true!

I personally like the idea that there are funds to be spend rather than given to electricity companies. It increases the value of all our investments. And should I3 have not issued AGS only for the shake of simplicity?

The answer to your question is: Bitshares XT is the same as Bitshares X except that the XT signals that it is in test phase. If there is no critical flaw the Bitshares XT will become the Bitshares X....
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 08:37:29 pm

You'll notice I'm on the forum quite a bit too, *I* am not suffering from this development.  *I* have profited.   But *I* recognize that my profit comes at the cost of those who thought they could just invest and then come back when there was actually something ready for them to use as a normal user.    What % of Invictus's investors do you think that is?   I bet you a whole lot of them came from my discussions with Daniel and strong recommendations of his product.  So it is not myself I am concerned about, it is my audience who I chose to expose to this project that is now a very different arrangement than when they bought in.  And they did buy in.

Adam, I came to be an investor in PTS because of hearing your interview with Dan on Lets Talk Bitcoin, and because of reading the articles by Dan and Stan on your site. I was a donator to your program in its very earliest days when you had a tiny audience. I am also one of the very very few people who actually donated to the articles written by Dan and Stan on your site.

I am therefore in a quandry as to your objections to the business decisions made by Invictus. Would you rather the endeavor to have crashed and burned, but to have stuck tightly to the original plan? With the flawed and unexpected results of the release of the PTS blockhain, without changes the experiment would have been over. (and these absentee investors you are worried about would have lost everything)

Regarding these investors that you are worried about, the ones who you say invested and then went away to come back at some future date when their investment will have magically paid off, there would be nothing to come back to without changes to the original release plans.

I consider the way that Invictus has implemented its fundraising to be brilliant and innovative. I, like you, have done well by staying informed and keeping an eye on my investment despite my utter lack of technical savvy. I don't expect the Government, or Big Brother, or even Adam Levine to protect me if I choose to invest unconsciously and not stay fully informed. (recall that when you complained about us not being kept informed daily as to Keyhotee development, I was 100% with you. Now how would daily updates be of any use to anyone who "thought they could just invest and then come back when there was actually something ready"?)

If the problems with communication had been solved and adequate time given between the announcement of proposed changes and the implementation of those changes, I wouldn't be saying anything.   I do not feel like there has been a reasonable chance for people to learn about this and I feel like the very few venues Invictus even bothered reaching out to on the issue is unacceptable.  I had to demand that Invictus provide an article that we could post on the topic, they were not planning on doing that.  I have asked about their further plans to get the word out, and so far I have heard that there *are* plans but we're six days off from the deadline and I haven't seen an article in Coindesk, Bitcoin Magazine, was it posted to the bitcoin talk forums or anywhere else?   

If there was a public facing official blog, no problem!  People have a place to go if they want to stay informed.  What is their option now? 

When someone comes on the show and talks about an opportunity they want people to give them money for, and they define the terms that people then use to guide their investment, that's a deal.   If the deal had been "acquire this stuff then pay close attention to everything we do" that would be one thing, but I'll bet you many of those people don't even know anything happened.   

Is lost value not lost regardless of if the person knows?  If I go into your house and steal something you don't notice missing, is that not still stealing? 

I'm not sure if folks remember, but the big change protoshares made was implementing its Momentum algorithm that made it possible for individuals to mine with CPUs.  This was done to test the concept for Bitshares because "giving away" bitshares to the broadest number of stakeholders through non-monetary means was viewed as a way to built the largest most inclusive community possible.    It didn't work with Protoshares and so Invictus pivoted away from mining, but I don't get why moving away from mining means moving away from non-monetary distribution for the aforementioned vesting purposes.

As I mentioned, I am not unreasonable and I suggested that Angelshares be allocated a further 10% when it was first proposed in December.  10% for PTS holders, 10% for AGS holders and 80% available for future decision making with whatever left over going to miners.    That would have been a NEW deal while leaving the Protoshares deal to itself, and while it would have been bad for the price of protoshares because it provides another avenue to acquire BTS, it would have been broadly consistent with the original deal which involved a substantial non-monetary means of acquiring Bitshares.    Does anyone think offering only 10% of Bitshares with AGS would have been less successful?   I think the number didnt matter, it was just about being a cheaper (in an absolute sense) way to acquire BTS, and Invictus likes it because they essentially get to sell a product for what looks like a donation on their balance sheet.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 22, 2014, 08:42:59 pm
I3 needs to make a pretty version of this:

http://i.imgur.com/AliC4m0.png

blue/purple are PTS/AGS.

Green is BitShares X chains, with XT being the one that is initialized with ags/pts. Red is a later DAC like DomainShares
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 22, 2014, 08:45:00 pm
I3 needs to make a pretty version of this:

http://i.imgur.com/AliC4m0.png

blue/purple are PTS/AGS.

Green is BitShares X chains, with XT being the one that is initialized with ags/pts. Red is a later DAC like DomainShares

Yes, that would be good too.  First they need an official blog and to start posting things there that are informative, clarifying and definitive.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 08:53:33 pm
I3 needs to make a pretty version of this:

http://i.imgur.com/AliC4m0.png

blue/purple are PTS/AGS.

Green is BitShares X chains, with XT being the one that is initialized with ags/pts. Red is a later DAC like DomainShares

As bad as your drawing abilities are, I must say THAT is more clear information than I have received from anything associated with invictus...

SO I understand it is, my PTS will get me BTSX... after that only BTSX gets me those spinoffs in the green, PTS does not... however the red DAC down the road does apply to PTS but not BTSX... if I understand the concept...

something that looks like my 2 year old draw on my wall gives me more information than the thousands of messages I have read... if only I could understand picasso now I might see his paintings in a new way...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 08:58:51 pm
now is invictus going to try to raise more money with BTSX let us say AGSX, and then so the exact same thing they just did to PTS and AGS? essentially a nonstop pyramid of money raising for everything they can spinoff, so the company continue to make profits to pay employees and themselves?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 22, 2014, 09:02:51 pm
They can't do that since they already pre-allocated 100%. Prior to introducing AGS, PTS only had 10% allocation (90% to miners AKA the power companies), so they justified introducing AGS because they found a way to do it while still rewarding PTS holders with even more. I3 never devalued the value of PTS in terms of shares of future DACs (unless you count the situation where planned to sell all your XT so you won't get future BTS X offshoots) and it is very unlikely that they would.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 22, 2014, 09:05:39 pm
I am basing that off of:

Quote
If our goal is to see the value of BitShares XT to grow then we need to future-proof peoples investment in BitShares XT after launch against being devalued by one of our planned upgrades or the flood of variants with different assets.   For this reason we have decided to recommend that all future chains based upon the concept behind BitShares X be initialized with a snapshot (100%) of the state of BitShares XT around the time of their launch.   Thus the primary vehicle for investing in future BitShares X chains will be to own BitShares XT.... likewise, chains that are variants of BitShares XI or XV should honor their parent with 100% stake.     

So the caveat is: nothing prevents a competitor from honoring less than 100%, but XT holders will probably be the ones launching the offshoot chains and so we should expect 100%
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: oco101 on February 22, 2014, 09:14:10 pm
I3 needs to make a pretty version of this:

http://i.imgur.com/AliC4m0.png

blue/purple are PTS/AGS.

Green is BitShares X chains, with XT being the one that is initialized with ags/pts. Red is a later DAC like DomainShares


As bad as your drawing abilities are, I must say THAT is more clear information than I have received from anything associated with invictus...

SO I understand it is, my PTS will get me BTSX... after that only BTSX gets me those spinoffs in the green, PTS does not... however the red DAC down the road does apply to PTS but not BTSX... if I understand the concept...

something that looks like my 2 year old draw on my wall gives me more information than the thousands of messages I have read... if only I could understand picasso now I might see his paintings in a new way...
Lol lol I have to say that all your post are really funny. But what you say it true. It is very confusing, and this could be Invictus Achilles heel and this could be potentially deadly. That website better be ready, better have a blog and I hope they will have rules that not change anymore or if they are changing they should follow Adam suggestions. I'll see  people are getting confused more and more every day  if it keeps going like that it is a loosing battle for sure. Let hope that website will be really ready in march....
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: bitbro on February 22, 2014, 09:50:18 pm
Adam is making fuss just to make it.  Invictus is a private incorporation, they promise you open source code and they let the market determine how their products, shares, etc. will be accepted. they never promised you an official public facing blog(although this forum is pretty good as one), nor did they promise you any other shit that you're whining about.  In this venture, investing was about intuition. quit griping and asking for every fraction of information and a chance to contribute to every decision.  To me, you, sir, are not practical and are not geared towards progress.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: santaclause102 on February 22, 2014, 09:50:58 pm
It's not that difficult:
PTS gives you 1.3 x in all BTS X chains which is a total of 50 % in BTS X for all PTS.
AGS gives you 3.3 x in all BTS X chains which is a total of 50% in BTS X for all PTS.
PTS are trabable can can be sold afer the 28th, AGS can not.
PTS and AGS give you at least 10 % in of the stake of alle DACS that are developed by I3 and in all DACs that use the Bitshares source code and / or the help of I3 to build their DAC and in all DACs that honour PTS/AGS to get the attention of PTS/AGS holders.

What more do you have to know? Not that much. The confusion more comes from the fact that there are two ways to invest (PTS and AGS) which makes decisions more complex because their value is interdependent and which one is best depends on future developements. Going with everything (AGS, PTS, BTC) a bit is not too bad I think.

BUT THERE IS A REASON FOR THIS COMPLEXITY. Read my post at the end of https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3099.30


*BTS = Bitshares
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 09:56:02 pm
They can't do that since they already pre-allocated 100%. Prior to introducing AGS, PTS only had 10% allocation (90% to miners AKA the power companies), so they justified introducing AGS because they found a way to do it while still rewarding PTS holders with even more. I3 never devalued the value of PTS in terms of shares of future DACs (unless you count the situation where planned to sell all your XT so you won't get future BTS X offshoots) and it is very unlikely that they would.

Now I also notice in one posting they say they do not intend to be a host or use this software, they just want to create the software, release it, and then let some 3rd party be the host... their lawyers essentially told them you're making yourselves liable and legally it would be smarter if you didn't...

so since they are trying to establish this as not "company shares" and they are simply taking "donations" from people... their name says "incorporated" after it... which would imply they have legally registered in the US as an incorporated company... now if they have they have certain legal obligations they must follow and conduct themselves in... taking "donations" comes with a HEAVY amount of paperwork in america, I know I deal with it though volunteer work and the countless hours we must go through...

all that being recognized, are they legally allowed to take donations... and how can they use donated money for a for-profit incorporation... unless they have filed as a non-profit corporation for which there would be a great amount of data they could provide us all to check the status of that legally... which I am doubting exists... otherwise it would be plastered over every statement they make for legal protection... so this in fact would make them a for profit company... (if they have no paperwork at all, they would in fact be operating as a "doing business as" name which would hold the "board members" individually liable under their social security numbers for tax and legal purposes... opening up them individual for any lawsuits...

so now that I've established they are a for profit company in some form or matter since I have seen no declaration otherwise... how can these "protoshares" and "angelshares" not be considered company stock since they clearly have expressed they are shares in this software which they created and control currently... and by creating it and running it (which is probably why all future software won't be run by them at their attorneys advice) they have in essence created all of us company shareholders which entitles us to certain legal rights with requesting documents from the company per american law... basically a shareholders meeting if you will for a very basic summary... along with voting rights of the board members as shareholders... as well as company ownership as these are the stocks...

which leads to me to several other questions... now I have read they did not "pre-mine" any shares... but how is the company rewarding shares to people who do certain things posted in other forums... so at some point they had to purchase shares, or used equipment to mine shares for the company... in which case they used shareholder money ("donations") to further the business along and develop new products and sources of future income which they plan to spin off, into other sub-companies (DACs) for which new shares will be rewarded in them based upon original share ownership at a period in time...

I just don't see how they can skirt the legal system of being shares versus a commodity... I know the FTC came out and said they don't see bitcoins as anything more than a commodity and weren't interested in at the time (all it takes is one lawsuit to become interested)... however this is not like bitcoins... people are in fact trading in the "commodity" for shares in something else... its no longer a commodity swap, if AGS holders are not able to swap AGS shares for other commodities... its becoming a legally binding stock contract... which opens the door to a whole new world of questions for me...

I may have just been thinking out loud... but I have more questions than ever...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 10:01:19 pm
Adam is making fuss just to make it.  Invictus is a private incorporation, they promise you open source code and they let the market determine how their products, shares, etc. will be accepted. they never promised you an official public facing blog(although this forum is pretty good as one), nor did they promise you any other shit that you're whining about.  In this venture, investing was about intuition. quit griping and asking for every fraction of information and a chance to contribute to every decision.  To me, you, sir, are not practical and are not geared towards progress.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

well thats just it... when you said "in this venture, investing"... this is NOT an investment if you read their website... this is a DONATION according to them... so all the scrutiny is well advised and caused as a result of their lack of clarification and ultimately change in tactics... they did make promises as an incorporated company which you acknowledge it is incoporated.. being publically traded or privately traded does not negate the legalities and requirements for clarity to shareholders... which they deemed us by their methods of running the software and controlling it currently... so they are in essence, the stock exchange they never wanted to become, which they in the future plan to avoid, for obviously legal reasons...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: barwizi on February 22, 2014, 10:10:38 pm
interesting conversation that is touching a lot of areas of concern, from the issues of AGS/PTS funding model to legal framework and definition of companies in this industry. Aspiring DACs entrepreneurs may want to pay attention to some of the issues mentioned here.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: onceuponatime on February 22, 2014, 10:22:58 pm
They can't do that since they already pre-allocated 100%. Prior to introducing AGS, PTS only had 10% allocation (90% to miners AKA the power companies), so they justified introducing AGS because they found a way to do it while still rewarding PTS holders with even more. I3 never devalued the value of PTS in terms of shares of future DACs (unless you count the situation where planned to sell all your XT so you won't get future BTS X offshoots) and it is very unlikely that they would.

Now I also notice in one posting they say they do not intend to be a host or use this software, they just want to create the software, release it, and then let some 3rd party be the host... their lawyers essentially told them you're making yourselves liable and legally it would be smarter if you didn't...

so since they are trying to establish this as not "company shares" and they are simply taking "donations" from people... their name says "incorporated" after it... which would imply they have legally registered in the US as an incorporated company... now if they have they have certain legal obligations they must follow and conduct themselves in... taking "donations" comes with a HEAVY amount of paperwork in america, I know I deal with it though volunteer work and the countless hours we must go through...

all that being recognized, are they legally allowed to take donations... and how can they use donated money for a for-profit incorporation... unless they have filed as a non-profit corporation for which there would be a great amount of data they could provide us all to check the status of that legally... which I am doubting exists... otherwise it would be plastered over every statement they make for legal protection... so this in fact would make them a for profit company... (if they have no paperwork at all, they would in fact be operating as a "doing business as" name which would hold the "board members" individually liable under their social security numbers for tax and legal purposes... opening up them individual for any lawsuits...

so now that I've established they are a for profit company in some form or matter since I have seen no declaration otherwise... how can these "protoshares" and "angelshares" not be considered company stock since they clearly have expressed they are shares in this software which they created and control currently... and by creating it and running it (which is probably why all future software won't be run by them at their attorneys advice) they have in essence created all of us company shareholders which entitles us to certain legal rights with requesting documents from the company per american law... basically a shareholders meeting if you will for a very basic summary... along with voting rights of the board members as shareholders... as well as company ownership as these are the stocks...

which leads to me to several other questions... now I have read they did not "pre-mine" any shares... but how is the company rewarding shares to people who do certain things posted in other forums... so at some point they had to purchase shares, or used equipment to mine shares for the company... in which case they used shareholder money ("donations") to further the business along and develop new products and sources of future income which they plan to spin off, into other sub-companies (DACs) for which new shares will be rewarded in them based upon original share ownership at a period in time...

I just don't see how they can skirt the legal system of being shares versus a commodity... I know the FTC came out and said they don't see bitcoins as anything more than a commodity and weren't interested in at the time (all it takes is one lawsuit to become interested)... however this is not like bitcoins... people are in fact trading in the "commodity" for shares in something else... its no longer a commodity swap, if AGS holders are not able to swap AGS shares for other commodities... its becoming a legally binding stock contract... which opens the door to a whole new world of questions for me...

I may have just been thinking out loud... but I have more questions than ever...

I don't understand why you are investing such a huge amount of unproductive time and unproductive effort in remaining confused.

Why not take your miners and mine something other than PTS? Why not spend your time researching something mainstream and investing in something you find easier to understand?

This is the bleeding edge. Not everyone is cut out to bleed.



Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: bitbro on February 22, 2014, 10:26:55 pm

[/quote]

This is the bleeding edge. Not everyone is cut out to bleed.

[/quote]


F-ck yes!

 ;D
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 22, 2014, 10:32:40 pm

I don't understand why you are investing such a huge amount of unproductive time and unproductive effort in remaining confused.

Why not take your miners and mine something other than PTS? Why not spend your time researching something mainstream and investing in something you find easier to understand?

This is the bleeding edge. Not everyone is cut out to bleed.

I have other investments from traditional ones like a home, 401k, to riskier speculation investments such as baseball cards, and PTS...  does not a wise investor spend time understanding the complexity of a situation rather than just throw money at the wind and hope some blows back into his face? you make light of something because today it works, but tomorrow if you get bit you will not jump on the bandwagon of how or why did this happen... you will just write off the loss and move on? maybe that works for you, but if I am to invest time and energy into something speculating on a potential future return, would it not be prudent to  look at all aspects so I can best judge where and when the effort is best applied to maximize that potential return?

don't mistake my judgement and challenge of this to not be extreme interest and belief in it... clearly I do have extreme interest or else I would not be digging deep into the understanding to find the best path... however when the paths keep changing and the waters being muddied, you have to make a decision on the best application of your efforts to maximize returns like I stated... if you want to just "point a machine someplace else" why don't you just buy a lottery ticket instead... the whole reason we point machines someplace is to be on the cutting edge and squeeze all we can out of it before we jump to the next one... what is wrong with wanting to actually build and understand one of them for the long-term versus a bunch of short-term gains... I see potential for long-term here and that requires a different bit of scrutiny and understanding that a short-term investor who tomorrow night might be mining someplace else...

I want to ensure my decision is based on sound logic and fact, not a bunch of "maybe" that tomorrow it will change and try a new model, or be liable for damaging lawsuits which would affect  someone who holds AGS and is NOT able to trade them... I can dump PTS in a second, but if I am a "donation" shareholder with AGS I can not dissolve that marriage to the best of my advantage...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: onceuponatime on February 22, 2014, 10:37:20 pm

I don't understand why you are investing such a huge amount of unproductive time and unproductive effort in remaining confused.

Why not take your miners and mine something other than PTS? Why not spend your time researching something mainstream and investing in something you find easier to understand?

This is the bleeding edge. Not everyone is cut out to bleed.

I have other investments from traditional ones like a home, 401k, to riskier speculation investments such as baseball cards, and PTS...  does not a wise investor spend time understanding the complexity of a situation rather than just throw money at the wind and hope some blows back into his face? you make light of something because today it works, but tomorrow if you get bit you will not jump on the bandwagon of how or why did this happen... you will just write off the loss and move on? maybe that works for you, but if I am to invest time and energy into something speculating on a potential future return, would it not be prudent to  look at all aspects so I can best judge where and when the effort is best applied to maximize that potential return?

don't mistake my judgement and challenge of this to not be extreme interest and belief in it... clearly I do have extreme interest or else I would not be digging deep into the understanding to find the best path... however when the paths keep changing and the waters being muddied, you have to make a decision on the best application of your efforts to maximize returns like I stated... if you want to just "point a machine someplace else" why don't you just buy a lottery ticket instead... the whole reason we point machines someplace is to be on the cutting edge and squeeze all we can out of it before we jump to the next one... what is wrong with wanting to actually build and understand one of them for the long-term versus a bunch of short-term gains... I see potential for long-term here and that requires a different bit of scrutiny and understanding that a short-term investor who tomorrow night might be mining someplace else...

I want to ensure my decision is based on sound logic and fact, not a bunch of "maybe" that tomorrow it will change and try a new model, or be liable for damaging lawsuits which would affect  someone who holds AGS and is NOT able to trade them... I can dump PTS in a second, but if I am a "donation" shareholder with AGS I can not dissolve that marriage to the best of my advantage...

Excellent reply. Thankyou.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: rysgc on February 23, 2014, 12:58:08 am
Common you guys, you all have a few valid points but I hate to see the seemingly uptrend in hammering on things all the time. If your so concerned about investors you shouldn't even be doing this right now, this drives the value and trust down and down. If you don't understand something just ask it or take a little more time to figure things out. There's a lot of things happening and some of them are quite complex but everything is to be found here on the forum and I'm sure there will be a new way (blog or whatever although a sticky post on each topic should do just fine) of communicating very soon to deal with your frustrations.

It's almost impossible to stick to your original faultless plan, with any company and especially when creating new things which can very well change the world some day. Who cares if you lose out a little at start and gain much more in the end? And AGS was merely brought to life to fund 3I DAC's not to make things more complex.

This is bigger then 3I and bigger then all of us, and who knows if it will succeed or fail only time will tell, but until then I do my best to support this and stay updated and any large investor will do the same I'm sure. I think people should really start to see this as a revolution instead of their usual business activities where everything can be measured and compared with lots of reference material. So again just keep it nice and whenever your concerned about some things express them in a professional way with the opportunity to make things better instead of shouting out your personal frustrations.

[edit]
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/caution-watch-for-falling-pts is nicely written and can be a nice example for future communications
[/edit]
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: CryptoN8 on February 23, 2014, 01:51:49 am
Well this was a good 5 page read, lots of information and I have to agree with many points made by many people. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over this next week and into what we all hope will be many successful launches of the various products.

The #1 thing I am hearing through all these posts is the need for a central location for the "official word" on these rules and guidelines. A forum is a great communication tool, but a blog or product FAQ is a more professional way to set these very important factors and descriptions in stone so to speak. There is no doubt that it is all very confusing unless you have the time to dedicate many hours of reading a day to keep up with it. (many don't)

That being said, here is the article that Adam mentioned earlier that was recently posted over on the LTB site.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/caution-watch-for-falling-pts/
This is a prime example of what should be available on the main Invictus site, specifically the bitshares product page. Utilize a product blog for official statements and updates, use the forums for discussions, update the blog when things change, rinse and repeat.
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: jwiz168 on February 23, 2014, 02:12:26 am
After I have read  some of the arguments being raised. I think at this point in time some investors of other cryptocurrencies are worried about the potentials of  what i3 is presenting. Changes are GOOD. Cryptocurrencies are on infant stage. It may endure the growing pains associated with changes. Investors should embrace those bumps Naturally if there are potentials ,  there are also some lurking to discredit those potentials . Ironically we are talking about coins here, and what do we expect ? There is always two sides of it . Always has a RISK factor or what we call 'flipside'.

Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 23, 2014, 02:14:52 am
Well this was a good 5 page read, lots of information and I have to agree with many points made by many people. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over this next week and into what we all hope will be many successful launches of the various products.

The #1 thing I am hearing through all these posts is the need for a central location for the "official word" on these rules and guidelines. A forum is a great communication tool, but a blog or product FAQ is a more professional way to set these very important factors and descriptions in stone so to speak. There is no doubt that it is all very confusing unless you have the time to dedicate many hours of reading a day to keep up with it. (many don't)

That being said, here is the article that Adam mentioned earlier that was recently posted over on the LTB site.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/caution-watch-for-falling-pts/
This is a prime example of what should be available on the main Invictus site, specifically the bitshares product page. Utilize a product blog for official statements and updates, use the forums for discussions, update the blog when things change, rinse and repeat.
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

this leaves more legal questions since they are actually calling us "shareholders" in this announcement... which brings into question this whole "donation" thing even more (not just legally with the "stockholders/donators", but what about the IRS come tax time, this is taxable income to them)... this is a huge can of legal worms that could cause the entire value to be expunged by a large lawsuit or FTC investigation... this is what worries me... they are muddying the waters SO much calling things by different names every step of the way as if they are trying to legally sidestep something to create a legal barrier for which they have flat out broken wide open... I wish they would just call the apple an apple... so we can have clarity about buying oranges here...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 23, 2014, 02:40:38 am
What's happening here is fundamentally the same as with mastercoin exodus, nxt funding, counterparty funding... if BTS gets hit I think the whole DAC movement will get hit. Think your legal chances are better if your asset's name is *coin instead of *share? Unfortunately that might be true...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 23, 2014, 02:48:05 am
What's happening here is fundamentally the same as with mastercoin exodus, nxt funding, counterparty funding... if BTS gets hit I think the whole DAC movement will get hit. Think your legal chances are better if your asset's name is *coin instead of *share? Unfortunately that might be true...

my problem is... I really really really want this to succeed... as an investor this is a dream, to steal one of their analogies, its like buying a share of every internet company before they went public... however I'm worried immensely about the legalities of how the business is being practiced which is preventing me from going insane with large investments... I'm stuck playing conservative because I really do see a huge probability this will end bad, despite the fact I want it to succeed... so by raising this issue hard now means it can be tackled now before it really does progress to a court system which means we all lose and this great experiment is doomed... so its better if they need to take a step back and instead of pushing time and effort on software they put all that effort into sorting out the legalities to ensure this has a future like they are building for... otherwise it will have been for nothing... but human nature says, we'll worry about that later while we go forward over here...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: toast on February 23, 2014, 02:55:47 am
so by raising this issue hard now means it can be tackled now before it really does progress to a court system which means we all lose and this great experiment is doomed... so its better if they need to take a step back and instead of pushing time and effort on software they put all that effort into sorting out the legalities to ensure this has a future like they are building for... otherwise it will have been for nothing...

100% disagree. Better to write the software first. They can put all of I3 in jail and BTS X will still be running on a global scale, invested developers will move to singapore or some shit like that. That said, you should consider how much more I3 cares about not getting in trouble than even you do.

Freedom of speech implies freedom to trade - this is the new reality. I can understand not wanting to take the risk in the short term, but in the long term we either deteriorate into a global totalitarian surveillance state or this becomes unquestionably legal.

Too extreme?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Stan on February 23, 2014, 03:27:27 am
Well this was a good 5 page read, lots of information and I have to agree with many points made by many people. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over this next week and into what we all hope will be many successful launches of the various products.

The #1 thing I am hearing through all these posts is the need for a central location for the "official word" on these rules and guidelines. A forum is a great communication tool, but a blog or product FAQ is a more professional way to set these very important factors and descriptions in stone so to speak. There is no doubt that it is all very confusing unless you have the time to dedicate many hours of reading a day to keep up with it. (many don't)

That being said, here is the article that Adam mentioned earlier that was recently posted over on the LTB site.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/caution-watch-for-falling-pts/
This is a prime example of what should be available on the main Invictus site, specifically the bitshares product page. Utilize a product blog for official statements and updates, use the forums for discussions, update the blog when things change, rinse and repeat.
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

This article was available on our website within hours of being published:

http://invictus-innovations.com/links/

This is our preferred method - get it published somewhere and then link to it.

Some publishers are reluctant to publish something that's already been up on our web site, so we have to do it in this order.

A top-end web site is coming in March - complete with the blog capability everyone has been wanting.

I'm really looking forward to that!
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 23, 2014, 03:33:58 am
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

wasn't +5% dropped from Bitshares XT?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: onceuponatime on February 23, 2014, 03:42:57 am
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

wasn't +5% dropped from Bitshares XT?

That is my understanding (that it is to be added in a later DAC, probably over a year off because other DACS will be worked on first)
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: yellowecho on February 23, 2014, 04:01:59 am
A new website is coming March 21st:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=2927.msg36583#msg36583

By the sound of it, it should address most of the items of concern discussed in this thread.  Be a little more patient as big things are just around the corner!
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: CryptoN8 on February 23, 2014, 04:09:58 am
...Snip...
That being said, here is the article that Adam mentioned earlier that was recently posted over on the LTB site.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/caution-watch-for-falling-pts/
This is a prime example of what should be available on the main Invictus site, specifically the bitshares product page. Utilize a product blog for official statements and updates, use the forums for discussions, update the blog when things change, rinse and repeat.
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

This article was available on our website within hours of being published:

http://invictus-innovations.com/links/

This is our preferred method - get it published somewhere and then link to it.

Some publishers are reluctant to publish something that's already been up on our web site, so we have to do it in this order.

A top-end web site is coming in March - complete with the blog capability everyone has been wanting.

I'm really looking forward to that!

I stand corrected for implying that it was not there when it was, I did not see it, but stumbled across it on the LTB site. I was making the suggesting that having it under what looks like to me the current product page http://invictus.io/bitsharesx.php might get more eyes on it.

I know you guys are working really hard on all of this. I really look forward to seeing the new site and blog, it will be great to consolidate.

Another suggestion would be that on the new site, when a blog post is made, it is also posted on the various official social media accounts for max dissemination. (Twitter, etc.)
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 23, 2014, 05:12:51 am
A new website is coming March 21st:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=2927.msg36583#msg36583

By the sound of it, it should address most of the items of concern discussed in this thread.  Be a little more patient as big things are just around the corner!

the problem being, the time for action will be BEFORE its up and running... otherwise you're at the mercy of reading thousands of forum messages daily hoping you stumble across the right announcement or information... in which case I've clearly pointed out you stumble across conflicting information posted by various employees that does not match...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: AdamBLevine on February 23, 2014, 05:18:15 am
It takes literally a half hour to set up a nice looking branded blog  with tumblr.com
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: CryptoN8 on February 23, 2014, 05:22:57 am
It takes literally a half hour to set up a nice looking branded blog  with tumblr.com

True. Even if it was a placeholder until the new site. It's getting really hard to find info, and going to get worse for another 30 days...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: jas on February 23, 2014, 07:49:42 am
What a thread!

It has every emotion and information you could hope for from an internet forum, As a newbie, this was a very helpful read, but nobody has really touched on the storm of post-screen cap. Will PST holders need to hold after screen cap to import wallets to BTSx client or should I be going off the advice of what was written in the article recently posted?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: bytemaster on February 23, 2014, 08:04:02 am
(http://oi57.tinypic.com/2ptxno9.jpg)
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: jas on February 23, 2014, 09:22:31 am

I'm confused, but this AGS/PST BTSx allocation seems ridiculously fare. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it.

Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: eozdem on February 23, 2014, 11:15:49 am
if I understood clearly from graphic above, holding PTS is the most profitable choice, because it covers every future DACs, am I right?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: eozdem on February 23, 2014, 11:18:25 am
I mean will we be getting dividents from all future DACs by just holding our PTS in our own wallet?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: sumantso on February 23, 2014, 12:21:22 pm
For future non BTSX DACS, AGS will also give the same as PTS, except that you can't sell AGS. For the BTSX chains, though, AGS is much more profitable as 1 AGS gives you 3.33 BTSXT while 1 PTS gives you only 1.3 BTSXT.

If you are more interested in the future non BTSX DACs, I would suggest you to buy in March. I expect a massive drop in both PTS and AGS price after 28th Feb.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: jae208 on February 23, 2014, 12:37:21 pm
so by raising this issue hard now means it can be tackled now before it really does progress to a court system which means we all lose and this great experiment is doomed... so its better if they need to take a step back and instead of pushing time and effort on software they put all that effort into sorting out the legalities to ensure this has a future like they are building for... otherwise it will have been for nothing...

 +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5%

100% disagree. Better to write the software first. They can put all of I3 in jail and BTS X will still be running on a global scale, invested developers will move to singapore or some shit like that. That said, you should consider how much more I3 cares about not getting in trouble than even you do.

Freedom of speech implies freedom to trade - this is the new reality. I can understand not wanting to take the risk in the short term, but in the long term we either deteriorate into a global totalitarian surveillance state or this becomes unquestionably legal.

Too extreme?
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: jae208 on February 23, 2014, 12:37:59 pm
Well this was a good 5 page read, lots of information and I have to agree with many points made by many people. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over this next week and into what we all hope will be many successful launches of the various products.

The #1 thing I am hearing through all these posts is the need for a central location for the "official word" on these rules and guidelines. A forum is a great communication tool, but a blog or product FAQ is a more professional way to set these very important factors and descriptions in stone so to speak. There is no doubt that it is all very confusing unless you have the time to dedicate many hours of reading a day to keep up with it. (many don't)

That being said, here is the article that Adam mentioned earlier that was recently posted over on the LTB site.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/caution-watch-for-falling-pts/
This is a prime example of what should be available on the main Invictus site, specifically the bitshares product page. Utilize a product blog for official statements and updates, use the forums for discussions, update the blog when things change, rinse and repeat.
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

 +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5% +5%
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: jae208 on February 23, 2014, 12:39:49 pm
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

wasn't +5% dropped from Bitshares XT?

This is exactly why we need this Blog so that this information gets outs quickly and accurately
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: CWEvans on February 24, 2014, 05:01:17 pm
this leaves more legal questions since they are actually calling us "shareholders" in this announcement...

Considering that the product is called 'BitShares' this should be no more problematic than 'Disney Dollars', 'Dollar Rent-a-Car', 'Dollar General' stores, etc., none of which is controlled by the Federal Reserve System or the US Treasury Department.  Likewise, Federal Express is not operated by the Department of Transportation, and Royal Crown Cola is not produced by the House of Windsor.

which brings into question this whole "donation" thing even more (not just legally with the "stockholders/donators", but what about the IRS come tax time, this is taxable income to them)...

Corporate taxes in the USA are paid on profits. Expenses incurred in the development of BitShares, including salaries, travel, and marketing, are subtracted before taxes are calculated.

...this is a huge can of legal worms that could cause the entire value to be expunged by a large lawsuit or FTC investigation... this is what worries me... they are muddying the waters SO much calling things by different names every step of the way as if they are trying to legally sidestep something to create a legal barrier for which they have flat out broken wide open... I wish they would just call the apple an apple... so we can have clarity about buying oranges here...

If it turns out that the term 'shareholder' should be changed to 'BitShareholder', 'stakeholder', 'sponsor', or whatever, Invictus Innovations can issue a clarification.

With regard to donations to for-profit entities, ten minutes of searching online turned these up:

"For-Profit Charity"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_charity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_charity)

"For-Profit Charities"
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2006/09/forprofit_chari.html
 (http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2006/09/forprofit_chari.html)

"Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html)

"The Reasons for For-Profit Philanthropy"
http://www.brooklaw.edu/newsandevents/blslawnotes/2010-2009/fall/googleforprofitphilanthropy/page3.aspx
 (http://www.brooklaw.edu/newsandevents/blslawnotes/2010-2009/fall/googleforprofitphilanthropy/page3.aspx)

"Five Ways to Realize Profits and Missions"
http://blogs.hbr.org/2009/10/five-ways-to-realize-profits-and-missions/
 (http://blogs.hbr.org/2009/10/five-ways-to-realize-profits-and-missions/)

"Canonical Opens Donations for Ubuntu, Lets You Put Money for a Mobile Version"
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Canonical-opens-donations-for-Ubuntu-lets-you-put-money-for-a-mobile-version_id35383
 (http://www.phonearena.com/news/Canonical-opens-donations-for-Ubuntu-lets-you-put-money-for-a-mobile-version_id35383)
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Darkbane on February 24, 2014, 05:14:16 pm
this leaves more legal questions since they are actually calling us "shareholders" in this announcement...

Considering that the product is called 'BitShares' this should be no more problematic than 'Disney Dollars', 'Dollar Rent-a-Car', 'Dollar General' stores, etc., none of which is controlled by the Federal Reserve System or the US Treasury Department.  Likewise, Federal Express is not operated by the Department of Transportation, and Royal Crown Cola is not owned by the House of Windsor.

which brings into question this whole "donation" thing even more (not just legally with the "stockholders/donators", but what about the IRS come tax time, this is taxable income to them)...

Corporate taxes in the USA are paid on profits. Expenses incurred in the development of BitShares, including salaries, travel, and marketing, are subtracted before taxes are calculated.

...this is a huge can of legal worms that could cause the entire value to be expunged by a large lawsuit or FTC investigation... this is what worries me... they are muddying the waters SO much calling things by different names every step of the way as if they are trying to legally sidestep something to create a legal barrier for which they have flat out broken wide open... I wish they would just call the apple an apple... so we can have clarity about buying oranges here...

If it turns out that the term 'shareholder' should be changed to 'BitShareholder', 'stakeholder', 'sponsor', or whatever, Invictus Innovations can issue a clarification.

With regard to donations to for-profit entities, ten minutes of searching online turned these up:

"For-Profit Charity"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_charity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_charity)

"For-Profit Charities"
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2006/09/forprofit_chari.html
 (http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2006/09/forprofit_chari.html)

"Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html)

"The Reasons for For-Profit Philanthropy"
http://www.brooklaw.edu/newsandevents/blslawnotes/2010-2009/fall/googleforprofitphilanthropy/page3.aspx
 (http://www.brooklaw.edu/newsandevents/blslawnotes/2010-2009/fall/googleforprofitphilanthropy/page3.aspx)

"Five Ways to Realize Profits and Missions"
http://blogs.hbr.org/2009/10/five-ways-to-realize-profits-and-missions/
 (http://blogs.hbr.org/2009/10/five-ways-to-realize-profits-and-missions/)

"Canonical Opens Donations for Ubuntu, Lets You Put Money for a Mobile Version"
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Canonical-opens-donations-for-Ubuntu-lets-you-put-money-for-a-mobile-version_id35383
 (http://www.phonearena.com/news/Canonical-opens-donations-for-Ubuntu-lets-you-put-money-for-a-mobile-version_id35383)

My problem being, their intermixing of the words, does not leave a clear and concise term for what it is you are receiving... are you a donator... are you an earner... are you an investor... are you a shareholder... are you a competitor... they have intermixed all of these terms and each one has different legal liabilities...

absolutely a for-profit company may accept donations... however they are taxable income but being represented as a donations... in MANY of the 50 american states, you MUST follow certain procedures and statement when you make that claim, you must supply notice that is it not deductible on the persons side because they are not a non-profit organization, some states say you must inform people the donation can be taxed by the IRS, and some states have all sorts of other goofy laws... so I am not challenging if they can accept this money, I am challenging the problems that may arise as a result of HOW they have taken this money...

they have left the door wide open to interpretation by not clearly defining within each states regulation what must be stated to people exchanging this "commodity" to them means... they've simply called it 5 different things on their AGS page... thats a serious issue for the community because this was promised to develop our community... which is the premise we all "donated" with... would people donate $20 million dollars if they knew $10 million could be given to the government... which seems to be the very "beast" we are trying to avoid with decentralization... would people donate if they knew their money would not be put towards them... would they donate if they knew this was a for-profit business that has no legal obligation to the community, where-as a non-profit would have stronger regulations preventing some expenses deemed inappropriate that a for-profit is not held to the same standard...

what they SHOULD be doing is saying you are a customer, who is buying this product, and this is the price... by having "donations", "competition", etc etc... they are opening the door to allowing someone else to decide in a court of law what it truely represents versus clearly defining it and protecting our community... thats my issue...

corporate taxes are not purely based solely on profits... there are many taxes they must pay along the way including payroll, healthcare, etc etc that will be taxed irregardless of profit along with state local and other federal taxes... the health affordable care act alone introduces dozens of new taxes you can't escape... and depending how employees are classified as independant contractors or not, even more taxes... they may release "bounties" but even some of those could be taxable depending on the terms of the contract work the individual could be seen as an employee under certain terms... there are a whole host of taxes you can not escape so some WILL be paid no matter what... it also depends how this is structured, is this actually incorporated or are they "doing business as" under the CEO's social security number which opens the door to even more taxes and liabilities...

also the "product" is not bitshares... people are buying/donating/earning/competing for AGS shares, which give a dividend payment of bitshares... you see where that muddies the water between stockholders and investors too now... the only way to obtain AGS is to exchange a commodity of some form for it, and as a result you are given something else that has other meaning and value... that alone very well could be a representation of an IPO under the securities and exchange commission...
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: luckybit on February 25, 2014, 10:28:44 am
When I read Adam's arguments, I realise, even if I consider only my selfish profits, that as a long term PTS holder I may not be getting a better deal. The argument that is rolled out (by me too) is that the jump from 10% to 50% means that PTS holders are getting rewarded.

However, in the original scheme, only 400k BTSX would have been available at the start. In the new scheme, there will be 10 times more. Sure, PTS holders got 5x the original allotment but then they have to contend with 10x the initial supply.

So, not only the initial supply is huge, PTS holders will also have to contend with BTSX owners who have gotten them for even less than 0.0025 BTC in some cases through AGS route. Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run - I dunno.

Personally, I am covered. I have PTS, AGS as well as BTC (to buy cheap PTS and/or BTSX in March); and I do believe that I3 has the best of intentions in all these changes. This is new territorry, and it was difficult to get the right scheme from the start.

Exactly.  Guys like us are fine, this IS a win for those who understand the situation enough to position themselves accordingly, but how to best do that is VERY confusing

Btw, its none of my business, but converting 1 PTS for 0.9 AGS (as has been happening) may not be the best of strategies.

Maybe!  Then again, maybe it's better to buy ALL AGS so you can maximize your BTS, sell half your BTS (still have more left over than just getting BTS from PTS) and use the proceeds to buy your original PTS back at the deflated price.   The whole situation is so confusing I really don't know what the best way to protect yourself is.    It's my understanding that AGS and PTS were being amalgamated into BTS for future-chain purposes because otherwise you have to manage AGS and PTS investors differently.  Am I mistaken?

Here is a solution. Once Invictus fulfills their obligation and releases Bitshares and the associated DACs then the community can take control and also release DACs of our own.

We can release DACs which favor people who held onto PTS and give 35% to PTS and only 10% to AGS for example. So because of this the AGS strategy may not be the wisest long term strategy.

I'm holding PTS and BTC and I will just buy more PTS on the dip. If PTS holders feel like they are being abused or mistreated the truth of the matter is that the long term holders whether it be PTS or AGS will decide how to fulfill the social consensus.

So I hear you're making a DAC? If you want to make PTS owners in your audience who followed Invictus whole then you can offer PTS holders a greater percentage than AGS holders. Appealing to Invictus is not really the answer, take the actions you deem necessary because the social consensus license allows for that.

I know how you feel, and I had the exact same debate on this forum the moment they switched from mining. I still don't know if I missed out not buying enough Angelshares but I'm not willing to give up PTS for Angelshares because I don't think Bitshares will be the most important DAC and I also don't think the most important DAC will be developed by Invictus.

What matters most is the social consensus, not Invictus.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: luckybit on February 25, 2014, 10:49:56 am
Well this was a good 5 page read, lots of information and I have to agree with many points made by many people. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over this next week and into what we all hope will be many successful launches of the various products.

The #1 thing I am hearing through all these posts is the need for a central location for the "official word" on these rules and guidelines. A forum is a great communication tool, but a blog or product FAQ is a more professional way to set these very important factors and descriptions in stone so to speak. There is no doubt that it is all very confusing unless you have the time to dedicate many hours of reading a day to keep up with it. (many don't)

That being said, here is the article that Adam mentioned earlier that was recently posted over on the LTB site.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/caution-watch-for-falling-pts/
This is a prime example of what should be available on the main Invictus site, specifically the bitshares product page. Utilize a product blog for official statements and updates, use the forums for discussions, update the blog when things change, rinse and repeat.
I'm very much looking forward to earning my +5% on anything.

this leaves more legal questions since they are actually calling us "shareholders" in this announcement... which brings into question this whole "donation" thing even more (not just legally with the "stockholders/donators", but what about the IRS come tax time, this is taxable income to them)... this is a huge can of legal worms that could cause the entire value to be expunged by a large lawsuit or FTC investigation... this is what worries me... they are muddying the waters SO much calling things by different names every step of the way as if they are trying to legally sidestep something to create a legal barrier for which they have flat out broken wide open... I wish they would just call the apple an apple... so we can have clarity about buying oranges here...

We are shareholders in the software itself, not in Invictus. In the social consensus license I deliberately suggested the phrase "value supply" be used. Units of value don't have to be owned and in this case are not owned by any centralized entity. Those units of value are shares or are currency units in the sense that value is being exchanged.

But Invictus is not the source of the value. The software itself is the source of the value just as with Bitcoin. So while Bitshares may someday be seen as a commodity like a stock and there might be some sort of tax implications, there is no direct connection between Invictus Innovation and Bitshares beyond the fact that they are writing the software.

This means it can be forked and Invictus wouldn't be able to do anything about it. It's owned by the community and that is why the social consensus exists. The social consensus uses the language of the law to guarantee that the community of shareholders owns Bitshares.

This is why 50% is owned by PTS holders and 50% owned by AGS holders. AGS holders brought more value to the project because they donated money at a critical time. Yes it's a donation and not a payment. The donation is to fund development of the software and Invictus Innovations are more like contractors doing the job of development rather than owners.

I hope this clarifies things.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: luckybit on February 25, 2014, 10:57:37 am
What's happening here is fundamentally the same as with mastercoin exodus, nxt funding, counterparty funding... if BTS gets hit I think the whole DAC movement will get hit. Think your legal chances are better if your asset's name is *coin instead of *share? Unfortunately that might be true...

Invictus isn't Bitshares. Invictus isn't the DAC movement. if Invictus were to go down the code is out there so we could contract any new group of developers to work on it. This in computer science is redundancy and it allows for our social network to be both decentralized resilient.

Invictus is not too big to fail. They are highly competent programmers but once Bitshares is created it will fund itself. I even posted some ideas on an autonomous bounty system somewhere in the forum so in the end if you own a DAC you own software which acts like a company but which isn't run by humans so you cannot sue it in a court.

Bitshares once designed is not run by humans. Dan from Invictus isn't running Bitshares on his company laptop. We the users will become the Bitshares networks and we the holders of PTS and AGS the owners of the chain and all future chains.

If we don't like the direction Invictus takes the chain we can use Angelshares to crowd fund another group of developers to make a better version of the DAC. This would be completely wasteful if we are happy with Invictus's work but that is always an option because whoever controls the value (and in this case it's the investors) decides the direction.

So in theory you could have a Bitshares chain which has an updated version of Protoshares, which adheres to the social consensus, and which is 85% mined. Invictus is not stopping us and couldn't stop us from doing it.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: Stan on February 25, 2014, 03:00:04 pm
What's happening here is fundamentally the same as with mastercoin exodus, nxt funding, counterparty funding... if BTS gets hit I think the whole DAC movement will get hit. Think your legal chances are better if your asset's name is *coin instead of *share? Unfortunately that might be true...

Invictus isn't Bitshares. Invictus isn't the DAC movement. if Invictus were to go down the code is out there so we could contract any new group of developers to work on it. This in computer science is redundancy and it allows for our social network to be both decentralized resilient.

Invictus is not too big to fail. They are highly competent programmers but once Bitshares is created it will fund itself. I even posted some ideas on an autonomous bounty system somewhere in the forum so in the end if you own a DAC you own software which acts like a company but which isn't run by humans so you cannot sue it in a court.

Bitshares once designed is not run by humans. Dan from Invictus isn't running Bitshares on his company laptop. We the users will become the Bitshares networks and we the holders of PTS and AGS the owners of the chain and all future chains.

If we don't like the direction Invictus takes the chain we can use Angelshares to crowd fund another group of developers to make a better version of the DAC. This would be completely wasteful if we are happy with Invictus's work but that is always an option because whoever controls the value (and in this case it's the investors) decides the direction.

So in theory you could have a Bitshares chain which has an updated version of Protoshares, which adheres to the social consensus, and which is 85% mined. Invictus is not stopping us and couldn't stop us from doing it.

Yes!  In fact we have offered to assist other competent startups, teams, entrepreneurs, and individuals to become developers of DACs and DAC infrastructure just so we can further decentralize everything.  We have even been working to decentralize Invictus itself in several important ways. 
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: luckybit on February 25, 2014, 09:13:51 pm
Anyone making a new DAC could also reward shares based on how long PTS holders have held PTS in a wallet. This would encourage people not to sell or trade their PTS by giving them an incentive that future DACs may reward long term PTS holders based on how long they hold (Proof of stake).

That's just an idea for DAC developers who think it's unfair how PTS holders are being treated.

http://vimeo.com/user24356268/review/87448377/66716b27fa

You also don't have to accept the recommendation of using Bitshares XT to allocate to the Bitshares chain. You can always use Angelshares and PTS in any mix you want as long as at least 10% go to each.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: bytemaster on February 25, 2014, 09:28:49 pm
Using coindays to award a genesis block would really devalue PTS purchased and make it non-fungible.   As coin days continuously accumulate it would also be inflationary...

Interesting concept though.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: luckybit on February 25, 2014, 11:24:32 pm
Using coindays to award a genesis block would really devalue PTS purchased and make it non-fungible.   As coin days continuously accumulate it would also be inflationary...

Interesting concept though.

You're right about it being inflationary, I was just throwing the idea out there to show that there are alternative options if people feel like things aren't fair. If enough people feel that way then rather than blame Invictus they can just build a better more fair distribution into their DAC.

Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: johncitizen on February 28, 2014, 05:49:26 pm
Everything is clear and PTS holders are rewarded more than ever. What is so confusing? I dont even need to stalk the forums to figure it out.

There will always be those that are not happy. Take a look at NXT, master coin etc

This is the fairest and most well publicised IPO of all time.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: JoeyD on March 13, 2014, 02:16:32 am
I've read Adam Levine's comments and I'm a bit confused as to why PTS-investors are getting such a raw deal. If I understand correctly the funding boost via AGS has increased the chance of succes and value plus roi of pts-holders immensely, without the pts-holders having to do or risk anything. (It even sounds like the ags-campaign has averted a trainwreck, because of the lack of funding)

Then again, I have not heard the LTB-show and only got wind of bitshares and Invictus after the ags-option was added. So from my perspective if only LTB-listerners were supposed to reap the maximum benefits of the Bitshares deal, that would be unfair and a raw deal for me and the people I've alerted to this.

So seeing how I only happened on this project by chance (because I was actively searching for projects like this, instead of alt-coins) I agree completely that Invictus could use some major PR and marketing work. Planning and investing more in clear information and getting the word out, could definitely increase attention and investments for Invictus. Each day you delay this is costing you(and us) dearly. Even worse I've heard loads of people taking credit for what I've only recently heard were Larimers/Invictus ideas to begin with. Ethereum and other  so called 2.0 (I know horrible term since were not even close to crypto 1.0 yet) are reaping the hype benefit for concepts that should have brought attention and support for Invictus.
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: fuzzy on March 14, 2014, 01:21:45 am
I've heard multiple people say it was better to eliminate mining and add angelshares because that "makes the deal better for PTS holders"  but really that's a bunch of garbage.

Before if you wanted to get Bitshares you could do it one of two ways - Acquire Protoshares or Mine Bitshares when it came out.   That meant anyone not wanting to mine or risk buying at post-launch market prices had to buy Protoshares, it was the only way.

Of course, Invictus didn't make any money off of that and so here comes Angelshares and the new deal where now instead of 10% of BTS going to PTS holders and 90% being mined over a number of years, it would be 50% with the other 50% going towards Angelshares holders.    This makes sense for Invictus because now they have money pouring in, but for PTS holders?  It means that your exclusivity is not only gone but so is any advantage you had.  Since 100% of the money supply is out day one you'll have immediately depressed prices as people sell to recapitalize some of their gains in Bitcoin or move out entirely as they see the financial opportunity having passed. 

Again, this is fine for Invictus, they got the funds and aren't much impacted except being able to buy more of the cheap BTS themselves.  It does however make one wonder why it was even worth buying or acquiring PTS since a) BTS will be available cheaply due to over supply and b) PTS is the WORST way to vest yourselves with Bitshares because of the math at work.   On February 28th Protoshares holders will get 1-1.5 Bitshares per PTS.  On February 28th Angelshares holders will get 3-4 Bitshares per AGS.   They both "cost" the same, but the more people who go into angelshares per day the worse the deal is for all of them.  Protoshares holders have the option of getting the worst return on investment available or giving their money to invictus and competing with everybody else for the remaining AGS before none of this matters any more.

When the deal gets better for someone, it gets worse for someone else.   I continue to be disappointed by the inability to acknowledge that.

Personally, I saw the price drop as an opportunity to buy more.  This is precisely what I did, and at a discount...especially if BitShares takes off and they can use most of the code for new DACs.

I am not so sure how PTS is garbage.  Has Invictus come out and said they plan to no longer develop DACs that honor PTS?

I've read Adam Levine's comments and I'm a bit confused as to why PTS-investors are getting such a raw deal. If I understand correctly the funding boost via AGS has increased the chance of succes and value plus roi of pts-holders immensely, without the pts-holders having to do or risk anything. (It even sounds like the ags-campaign has averted a trainwreck, because of the lack of funding)

Then again, I have not heard the LTB-show and only got wind of bitshares and Invictus after the ags-option was added. So from my perspective if only LTB-listerners were supposed to reap the maximum benefits of the Bitshares deal, that would be unfair and a raw deal for me and the people I've alerted to this.

So seeing how I only happened on this project by chance (because I was actively searching for projects like this, instead of alt-coins) I agree completely that Invictus could use some major PR and marketing work. Planning and investing more in clear information and getting the word out, could definitely increase attention and investments for Invictus. Each day you delay this is costing you(and us) dearly. Even worse I've heard loads of people taking credit for what I've only recently heard were Larimers/Invictus ideas to begin with. Ethereum and other  so called 2.0 (I know horrible term since were not even close to crypto 1.0 yet) are reaping the hype benefit for concepts that should have brought attention and support for Invictus.

agreed...and then you get into the fact that one of the main people hyping Ethereum actually left Invictus to do so...and there are questions as to why that I have resigned to admitting will likely never be answered.  I won't get into it again on here, but one should definitely research this on their own--and see my angry rant (somewhere on this forum).

To the Raw Deal PTS represents, as it stood before AGS, my BitShares PTS were only going to give me a 10% allocation of the total number of BitShares X when they came out.  Afterward it gave me 50%, which is a 40% increase if I just HELD my PTS.  This means everyone who thought investing in PTS before AGS came out is now getting 5x as many BitShares X. If they believed in Invictus enough to invest in BitShares AGS (AngelShares), they would be getting (using Feb 28th snapshot) approximately 12x the original deal. 

As for miners...what is keeping miners from mining PTS to this day?  Nothing...If they wanted to get a coin to mine, pump and then dump then sure they will be pissed, because BitShares PTS explicitly incentivizes people to hold them (much like Bitcoin).  I fail to see how any of this can be labeled garbage...that is unless the VC from China is someone with ties to HSBC or some other banking cartel (*cough cough*). 

The ONLY thing that I would fear, as an investor, is Devs coming in and copying all of Invictus hard work and then not honoring the social consensus in any meaningful way.  This is still possible, but Invictus used their brains to hedge against that as well...the AGS funds help to protect their intellectual capital by allowing them to HIRE Developers of promise and keep one step ahead at best and, at worst, have the ability to compete against those who would attempt to use their hard-earned capital (in time, experience AND money) to construct something similar.  AGS helps them retain the first movers advantage.

Really at a loss how any of this is bad, and trust me I was originally PISSED that they changed plans after I invested.  But Invictus listened to our concerns and went above and beyond to ensure the community was well compensated for their trust and the extra perceived risk they were taking by keeping their PTS after the change of strategy.  Those who left...well they don't have BitShares PTS or BitShares X, but they can still buy PTS/AGS for the next round. 

Disclosure:  I learned of PTS from Adam's show and invested in them 4 days after launch.  This has been a so-far wonderful experience for me...though I do reserve the right to change my mind in the future (but probably will not unless they as people change) ;)
Title: Re: This is the most confusing IPO of all time, wtf am I supposed to do?
Post by: JoeyD on March 14, 2014, 01:15:07 pm
agreed...and then you get into the fact that one of the main people hyping Ethereum actually left Invictus to do so...and there are questions as to why that I have resigned to admitting will likely never be answered.  I won't get into it again on here, but one should definitely research this on their own--and see my angry rant (somewhere on this forum).

Lol, seems I'm not alone with my suspicions. To be perfectly honest I started out by being very enthusiastic when hearing Vitalik announce Ethereum and started researching it (which lead me to discover Invictus and it's fundraising) and freeing up funds to invest in both projects. But then I heard some interviews with Hoskinson and it completely killed off all enthusiasm for Ethereum. He has said some very, very disturbing things; calling alts and experimentation signs of a disease and talking shit about bitcoin and all other projects and putting words in Satoshi's mouth as if he actually wanted to make Ethereum but was afraid to do so, while Satoshi in actual fact said the exact opposite since he was a proponent for separate block-chains using merged mining.

I get a very bad feeling of deja vu (reflections of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) whenever he says something (actually I've heard him referencing Microsoft shareholders and app-stores almost bursting out in jubilation, when talking about Ethereum, leaving very little to the imagination as to his real motivation). Now instead of enthusiasm I've gotten the distinct impression that some key members of the  Ethereum-team want to build a centralized walled garden app-store, but without even bothering building the eco-system around the app-store in the first place, just purely profiting on other peoples previous efforts. Even worse Ethereum itself seems to have no goal/reason to exist other than to profit from the work of others. Keep in mind I don't know the man personally and I might be completely wrong about him, but so far he has been very consistent in his remarks and they are consistently disturbing. I seriously hope I'm wrong, I do not want to wait another couple of decades for innovation to continue, because of another 19th century style monopoly.

Larimer gives off a completely different vibe. Nevertheless they are really hurting themselves with the lack of easy accessible information and communication in my opinion. For example the vimeo-explanations of the concepts are actually pretty good, but incredible hard to find even if you know what you're looking for. Why are they hiding them instead of putting up a gallery for them on the site. Hell if writing out all the documentation is too time consuming, it would probably be enough to post a weekly/monthly youtube show in which you give a quick sitrep and maybe explain a few things and put a link to the forums for questions where the community might take care of the rest. White-board drawings with stick-figure representations of us shareholders for scale are very much appreciated.

Maybe something like a periodical reddit-style AMA, where Invictus addresses some of the top-voted questions/issues should be in the realm of possibilities until all websites, education and communication channels are up and running.