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...

Is bitcoin "money"? Is bitcoin a "commodity" Is bitcoin both, or neither, or something else entirely? That hasn't been settled yet, because it is something entirely new that did not exist before. The debate rages on, but there seems to be some consensus forming around the idea that bitcoin is a distributed ledger system as very astutely presented by Trace Mayer (google his youtube interviews).

On the same note what Invictus is doing is entirely new, but you insist on trying to fit it into your old definitions of how business is done. It won't work that way. You are trapped in old concepts - causing yourself great frustration attempting the impossible. Let go of your concepts of how this "should" be done to fit your investing experience and expectations.

I absolutely understand this, however you can't just "let go of old thinking" when it comes to legal matters... whats written in law is what matters legally... and I see legal matters as the single largest threat to this... they are accepting donations, without declaring they are a non-profit company... this now binds them legally to for-profit business models and each state they have accepted donations from, nevermind foreign countries, have its own laws in how you are legally allowed to accept donations for anything... this is why websites that take donations for startup projects have a vast legal team to tackle state by state issues as many will require certain forms of paperwork along with each and every donations if its a penny or a million...

I'm not trying to make them fit me, I'm trying to make my investment fit them... its absolutely a risk, however its not unreasonable to expect to define that risk to make a judgement... I understand maybe this isn't right for me in your eyes, or possibly their eyes either... however if they claim to be as transparent and open as possible with these "donations", its not unreasonable at all for me to expect some actual legal backing with that as they accepted them... they didn't have to accept the donations by in doing so they obligated themselves to legal constraints in this country... so its not so much I should stop being the old fuddy duddy and don't ruin all the fun, its I should question and challenge them to answer the questions in a way that can be proven as they want to be open correct?

if being open and transparent means answering tough questions, thats what you do, if people challenge the logic and process, but its sounds and reasonable, it will be possible to thwart that attempt to raise concern... however if they are not able to quench the concern then there is even more reason to ask questions... like are they a non-profit company... since they are not, how will donations be handled when its tax time and they must report a profit... they said they would not make a profit and it would all go to the community... some of this is nit picking the details but some of it is quite valid...

if they are not for profit... who are the shareholders?

""The first 10,000 AGS are set-aside proportionally for Keyhotee Founders.  Invictus Innovations shareholders are not eligible.  Donations to Keyhotee after Dec 24, 2013 at Midnight GMT don't count.""

this is another quote of a moderator... so its closer tied to invictus... yet they claim its not tied... do you see where I am going with all this questioning... one day its one thing another day its another... and the whole system gets changed midstream... and then we're called donators, stockholders, shareholders, and then not...

""2) AngelShares is much closer tied to Invictus and we encourage other DAC development teams to form their own funding method or perhaps simply copy the AngelShares model.""

So we are "earning" bitshares ags... or are we donating... or as a patron are we customers buying... as a competition is it a lottery... are we earning/buying/winning BitShares AGS or "shares"... see all the conflicts in one statement...

""How to earn BitShares AGS?
Beginning New Year’s Day 2014, there will be 10,000 new AGS available each day in a new patron competition lasting 200 days. 5,000 AGS will be available to BitShares PTS holders daily. 5,000 AGS will be available to Bitcoin holders daily. That's ultimately 2,000,000 total shares, just like BitShares PTS.""

these are just a SMALL FRACTION of all the statements that legally contradict each other and send us back and forth... and every state in america has its own laws reguarding every single one of those types of transactions...

you refer to people as "OUR INVESTORS"... are they your investors or PTS investors...

""Instead of a small group of successful investors slowly pondering how to grow the industry, we
were looking at a whole army of investors yelling “I’m in!” Then it occurred to us: this is a
decentralized movement developing decentralized products and services. Why were we trying to
centralize our investors? Why can’t the owner of a single ProtoShare be a venture capitalist if
she want’s to? We should be sharing our ideas with everyone. So we are using this newsletter. ""

Quote from: Darkbane on February 23, 2014, 02:31:34 am

Quote from: bytemaster on February 23, 2014, 12:37:56 am

If we were to buy back PTS with AGS funds then we would only do so after discussing with the forum and in a very public / controlled way.   We will not secretly buy back PTS with AGS funds.   I still maintain that it is not a good idea and thus not likely to happen.

See this worries me... in one moment invictus call us stockholders... and then we're donators on another page... even making the statement "buy back PTS" implies it is company stock/value... so legally we own invictus and PTS is the method in which we claim ownership... so my next question is, can I get a copy of the minutes from the last board meeting, and when is the shareholder meeting planned... because I've got questionnnnsssssss.

The confusion comes because we are developing crypto-equities which are nothing more than crypto-currencies backed by a built-in profitable business.  But this is nothing but a metaphor - a polymorphic way of looking at the exact same thing.  Bitcoin itself can be viewed as a crypto-equity in an unprofitable (but appreciating) unmanned business where bitcoins can be viewed metaphorically as stock in a value-transmission company.

Invictus is a private corporation and none of its shares are involved in any of this.  We develop and release free open source software that others are free to use to implement ordinary crypto-currencies that are backed by much more than speculative thin-air.  They are backed by the services they perform and you can metaphorically view them as crypto-equities for that reason.

The reason we use the unmanned company metaphor is to better point out the value of embedding a profit-generating component into a crypto-currency.  But you could also accurately refer to them simply as next-generation crypto-currencies if you prefer.

When we use the term "shareholders" we are talking about holders of shares/coins in a crypto-currency/equity - not in Invictus.

Well it sounds great when you try to explain it as this is your vision... my worry is your vision doesn't match up with the legal system and the way you have proceeded to create this value backing up the currency, because if the shares have no value in the company than using your logic the company has no value to back the cryptocurrency... so while it might be nice to say and think it, legally you have sold shares in your company by accepting "donations" in exchange for shares, so it is not an actual donation since you are selling a product... so either you're selling us a product, or you are selling shares in the company... which you and many others have refered to many time by calling us stockholders...

believe me I don't want to come off as the hard ass who is trying to make you fail... I've expressed I want this to succeed because I believe this really could create a huge impact on things, and to be at the beginning is ideal in anything... however the way you throw words around loosely they legally have meaning and consequence when you're representing yourself and your company... and I've got to say you guys have opened the door wide on legalities... and I'm sure much like your lawyers have recommended you don't actually host any future DACs and simply "sell" the software to generate company income, you can't undo what has already been done... you've already accepted the money for shares in the company... how those shares are expressed is open to interpretation but they are bring distributed and/or sold...

let's tackle the donations... are they donations... are you legally allowed under law to accept donations... or are you selling a product to individuals... that should be cleared up immediately... you are a for-profit incorporation correct? are you actually incorporated?

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...