Author Topic: Bithaus: Progress update [Last Update: 06/03/2014]  (Read 25437 times)

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Offline santaclause102

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Nevertheless in light of the recent calamities I'm not sure that the requirement of not blinking an eye before throwing money at something is the most prudent requirement for investing. Don't take this the wrong way Domsch, but I sure do hope people do more than just not winking, if I'm not mistaken due diligence supposedly requires lots of blinking. Frugality amongst nxt-ers might also not be the very best of typecasts.

"without blinking an eye" was the wrong idiom in this context. What I'm stating is that from the bottom to the top the Nxt community was very supportive and even though it took some time (roughly 2 weeks) to raise the money, it went through with them. By no means would I want someone to invest in this without even reading our business/marketing plans and thoroughly thinking of it/asking lots of questions (which all of them did). But what I'm stating is that we were not able to raise these funds within the BTS community, and the bounties we were going for were suddenly not able for grabs anymore.

I have a team of 6 guys - some of whom have kids. So I'm not here to be in a waiting game and hope for a brighter future that we may or may not get funds. That's why I approached the Nxt community and luckily, we were able to raise the sum we intended to get and can move forward now :)

I'm not turning my back to the community as I met some amazing people here, but as I said in my first post, I'm looking for a community (and a management team of a crypto-project) that supports us and helps us in any way they can - I was able to find that in the Nxt community.

If you have any questions, just ask me or send me a PM.

Why is Charles Hoskinson telling people not to work with us anyway?  Nxt took donations and based their initial distribution off it just like AGS (for less money, but doesn't seem to be anything legally different.)

He is definitely not doing that. Charles is a good friend and he had helped us tremendously in Switzerland and was very supportive. This decision on helping Nxt out was a reason which I have decided upon myself with no "outside" influence. It was simply not possible for us to operate with our current strategy, so we had to revise and slightly change direction for us to even get off the ground.

And to clear this, yes I am acting out of my own interest and selfish reasons. I want Bithaus to succeed in any way possible, we have a lot planned for the long-term, but for now, it is my duty to solve the short-term, have our legal foundation set-up to expand our team and our products rapidly.

It is completely ok to decide to go with NXT as it is completely ok to decide to not fund it with AGS (because it is no DAC? Or whatever the reasons where).
On the other side it also shows the inability to make connections in the space. I don't even think that funding was what mattered the most. What matters is showing RESPECT, support, goodwill,interest and encouragement to the other ones project. The invictus team is not very good at doing that! It is essential though for success! 
Charles is good at helping other people and at some point they will give something back to him. That is just like humans work. Humans are peer to peer animals, its called reciprocity.
Another example is the Truthcoin project. It's not (mostly) about an immediate funding but about showing REAL interest.
Fact is that connections and ties are important. There are things coming out of good personal relations with people which you never thought about.... That is mostly how it goes.
Daniel says he can not do everything alone. But based on their actions I3 thinks they can do everything alone! Collaboration is ESSENTIAL and good personal relations based on mutual respect is the basis to that.
Encourage and support others and they will give it back to you more than you expected.   
I wrote about this often times https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4059.msg50857#msg50857
« Last Edit: May 10, 2014, 01:57:19 pm by delulo »

Offline liondani

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I'm trying to set-up my business without wasting a lot of time and continuing the waiting game.

I just believe that our patience will repaid soon and it is not wise for anybody of us to retreat before the last corner...
History of course will give us the right answers.... Good luck to all of us  ;)

Offline JoeyD

I've searched the forums a bit, but I did not see any fundraiser or announcement after Domsch last post mentioning he would come back on this. This only adds to my confusion about what actually happened here.

Even if they explain to us what happened, it can not change the fact that they don't showed respect to the community, to us ... I really Hope that the nxt community will not experience an identical behavior in the future...

I show immense respect to this community and I've met a lot of great people here. Various circumstances have required us to move to another community so that we can even start the project, so I'm not being disrespectful to the BTS community. I'm trying to set-up my business without wasting a lot of time and continuing the waiting game.

Domsch don't get me wrong I fully understand that you need to get something up and running and in your case that means having something to trade right now.

My responses were aimed towards AdamBLevines remarks and very odd depiction of the situation in my eyes. I don't understand what he's trying to say, what kind of fundraising model was he expecting from Invictus/bitshares in the first place? To me it sounds like he wanted two PTS-like-token-chains, but I don't see how that would make things any less complex or faster or even change the current situation in any way shape or form. I'm a newbie and even to me it was clear that AGS weren't liquid and locked to your bitcoin private-keys and if you wanted liquid you should get PTS.

EDIT
Now that I mention it, Domsch would bithaus be interested in trading PTS or is your model geared primarily towards bitsharesX? I also hope that the current need for money injection is only a little snag at the startup phase and that you're setting up buffers when unexpected things will happen. I'd be surprised if things will remain as relatively uneventful as they have been up till now in the crypto-currency/equity world and I hope people and businesses are mentally prepared for such times.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2014, 10:10:08 am by JoeyD »

Offline testz

Makes sense to me. Good luck with your business. Hope we can collaborate one btsx is out

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Offline cass

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Makes sense to me. Good luck with your business. Hope we can collaborate one btsx is out

 +5% Goold luck domsch :) Thx for your efforts... you know ... we talked several times..
█║▌║║█  - - -  The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear  - - -  █║▌║║█

Offline xeroc

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Makes sense to me. Good luck with your business. Hope we can collaborate one btsx is out

Offline domsch

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I've searched the forums a bit, but I did not see any fundraiser or announcement after Domsch last post mentioning he would come back on this. This only adds to my confusion about what actually happened here.

Even if they explain to us what happened, it can not change the fact that they don't showed respect to the community, to us ... I really Hope that the nxt community will not experience an identical behavior in the future...

I show immense respect to this community and I've met a lot of great people here. Various circumstances have required us to move to another community so that we can even start the project, so I'm not being disrespectful to the BTS community. I'm trying to set-up my business without wasting a lot of time and continuing the waiting game.


Offline liondani

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I've searched the forums a bit, but I did not see any fundraiser or announcement after Domsch last post mentioning he would come back on this. This only adds to my confusion about what actually happened here.

Even if they explain to us what happened, it can not change the fact that they don't showed respect to the community, to us ... I really Hope that the nxt community will not experience an identical behavior in the future...

Offline liondani

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Quote
author=JoeyD
There was not fundraiser here, so how can I invest in a non existent fundraiser?

Exactly!!!

 +5% +5% +5%



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« Last Edit: May 10, 2014, 03:34:42 am by liondani »

Offline JoeyD

@AdamBLevine Seems I misunderstood your intentions.

You seem to be rather angry about something and often alude to some insider knowledge or discussions you have had. I've asked you to post some more details about them repeatedly, but after making these remarks you never return to the discussion. Would it be possible for you to explain what you are talking about?

EDIT Also your representation of the difference between nxt and the situation here is a rather strange one. There was not fundraiser here, so how can I invest in a non existent fundraiser?
« Last Edit: May 09, 2014, 09:38:22 pm by JoeyD »

Offline liondani

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Quote
author=AdamBLevine

NXT was able to deliver because there was no giant Invictus fund, just a bunch of individuals who still had funds to invest (not having invested in Angelshares) and those individuals were able to decide, not me or bytemaster.

so you say on the bitshares community is nobody left with funds to invest?  So how do you explain that every day they make pts /btc  donations   for AGS?


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Offline JoeyD

After mtGox, NeoBee and bitcoin marketprice taking a dump I've run out of investment money I can spend without blinking quite a while ago, actually I've long since run out of funds to invest with loads of blinking as well,

How much did you give to Invictus in the form of Angelshares?  Would you have liked Invictus to have invested any of those funds in this?
Even though I'm not a wealthy guy I am a bit hesitant to post exact numbers on a public place like this. I bought into bitcoin in early December and planned to invest around 40% into projects to further the cause and then figure out what to do with the rest. I've put similar percentages in several projects ranging from bitcoin-related ones like mastercoin to other separate less wasteful solutions like nxt (was/am more hesitant about this one because of the secrecy and messing around with the publication of the sourcecode) and bitshares-ags(to help them bootstrap the multiple competing chain initiative). At the time I also reserved an amount for Ethereum, waiting and participating in the discussion about the IPO-format with Vitalik on their reddit. However with the btc price tanking and mtGox stealing the funds I was only meaning to store for the short period I needed to reinstall my pc and setup a cold-storage solution. Then NeoBee (very similar in concept to Bithaus) collapsing overnight without warning has left me with little more to give and me being a lot more hesitant to just donate on trust alone. Regarding the investment and community involvement in Bithaus here's my take on it and I would like to know where communication went wrong.

If I recall correctly I only got involved in bitshares around February this year, so I missed anything before that time and I don't know if Bithaus had been discussed at depth at that time already. The thing is I was under the impression Bithaus would contact the community on this forum and show us some details and information after which some kickstarter style crowdfunding would be setup. At least that was the last thing I saw on the forum. Other than the idea and some screenshots I have/had no detailed information on which I could make any judgement on investment or even form an opinion if AGS should or should not be used for this. Also I don't believe at this point the crowdfunding was presented as being solely dependent on AGS, but I did not see or hear from Bithaus again until I saw the posts yesterday.

Admittedly while I was waiting for them to come back with the promised project details and crowdfunder announcement, I was quite distracted with the aftereffects of mtGox and NeoBee (which I was very enthusiastic about and invested in) so I was not looking into Bithaus daily, and in the back of my mind expecting them to publish something when they were ready. Also after NeoBee I want to have some more detailed information, before taking another risk like that again or even forming an opinion if AGS-funds should be spent on this project.

I've searched the forums a bit, but I did not see any fundraiser or announcement after Domsch last post mentioning he would come back on this. This only adds to my confusion about what actually happened here.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2014, 09:26:32 pm by JoeyD »

Offline tonyk

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After mtGox, NeoBee and bitcoin marketprice taking a dump I've run out of investment money I can spend without blinking quite a while ago, actually I've long since run out of funds to invest with loads of blinking as well,

How much did you give to Invictus in the form of Angelshares?  Would you have liked Invictus to have invested any of those funds in this?
[/quote]

I didn't say I thought it was a good investment, I was pointing out that invictus "sucked up" investment that would otherwise have gone where it wanted.   

NXT was able to deliver because there was no giant Invictus fund, just a bunch of individuals who still had funds to invest (not having invested in Angelshares) and those individuals were able to decide, not me or bytemaster.

As much I as I agree with most of your post this is just stupid and below you…
« Last Edit: May 09, 2014, 08:20:34 pm by tonyk »
Lack of arbitrage is the problem, isn't it. And this 'should' solves it.

Offline AdamBLevine

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I didn't say I thought it was a good investment, I was pointing out that invictus "sucked up" investment that would otherwise have gone where it wanted.   

NXT was able to deliver because there was no giant Invictus fund, just a bunch of individuals who still had funds to invest (not having invested in Angelshares) and those individuals were able to decide, not me or bytemaster.
Email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com

Offline liondani

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After mtGox, NeoBee and bitcoin marketprice taking a dump I've run out of investment money I can spend without blinking quite a while ago, actually I've long since run out of funds to invest with loads of blinking as well,

How much did you give to Invictus in the form of Angelshares?  Would you have liked Invictus to have invested any of those funds in this?


If we proceed and simply say "Fuck you USA" a la MtGox and don't comply with regulations we will soon see our accounts seized and operations halted. That is why I am for conducting this all within legal borders and try to acquire the licenses as soon as possible.
Bitstamp right now simply works with international wire transfers to their accounts in the UK. (They are actually registered in the UK, but I think they operate from Slovenia). We intend to take a similar approach but are focusing on getting US Banking set-up and acquire the licenses as soon as possible. A huge problem could arise in which the US requests all trading platforms to be incorporated in the US, work with a US bank and get the required licenses. If we work on getting all this done prior such a hypothetical, but very likely, regulation, we will be ahead and trading would continue without any difficulties.

And I need to emphasize this again: Initially we will be able to operate WITHOUT these licenses

The only problem with your plan is Mt.Gox spends a huge amount of money on lawyers and compliance professionals.  You are assuming they're just bad actors, but that's not true.  The problem is in an environment lacking solid rules, the best you can do with your compliance effort is to make a bet at what you think it'll be.  That's crazy. 

You can try this however you'd like, I'm just saying please consult with a US attorney who knows the Bitcoin startup space before you commit to a business model that requires licenses in the US.

That is also how Coinbase did it and still does it. They entered a grey area and are doing fine as of now, but they are trying to get everything sorted by getting their state MTB licenses. We will take a similar approach.

Currently we are in talks with 3 lawyers from the US, Hong Kong and Germany. I'm still trying to work on that contingency plan mentioned on the first page of the thread and on a proper incorporation strategy that allows us to target the most prominent countries first while expanding to other countries. And we have also contacted several other attorneys from Singapore, UK and Australia to plan ahead and know what will be required.

It should be interesting to hire our own General Counsel. Similar to known start-ups that have challenged laws: Airbnb(local hotel zoning laws), Uber (taxi licensing requirements), and Pinterest (posting copyrighted images). Obviously that is another long-term goal, but if this platform shows traction and we raise money from a VC I do think that there is a possibility on not only hoping for a better output on a hearing, but also actively fighting for it.

Reference: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/why-startups-hire-their-own-lawyers/

Coinbase is doing fine because they have the backing of Andreesen Horowitz and the privileged-starts-only Silicon Valley Bank that isn't taking any more Bitcoin business right now (We checked, they're on "pause" right now even though we're a company that just sells sponsorships for Bitcoin).  Coinbase just got another 25 millionUSD in venture, I'm not  saying it's impossible but I am saying Invictus doesn't have anywhere near enough money, so it's a terribly inefficient way to spend it.

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