Best MUSIC DAC launch model for 2014?

[pendragon3]

In my opinion, the current proposed allocation and hybrid model has got it just about right. It strikes a good balance between short-term capital needs and the flexibility to raise funds in the future.

There will certainly be publicity benefits to a pre-sale, and I hope/expect the marketing to ramp up before and during this event. However, those who call for a bigger pre-sale are not looking at the whole picture. Imagine that you were able to get $20 million from an initial sale of 80% of the shares now. The problem is that this doesn't leave much room for future fundraising. It would be selling for cheap at a time when few people understand the potential of the DAC. What if, sometime in the near future--a year or two or three from now--the DAC has a multi-billion $ capitalization, and it becomes apparent that, to really compete on a global scale with big players, Peertracks needs $200 million capital. If they already sold 80% up front, then they will have used up all their ammo, so to speak, and left themselves with few options. They'd be effectively hamstrung. With the hybrid model, though, the DAC could easily raise the needed funds via a prudent amount of dilution.

Since no one can predict the future with total accuracy, it's best to limit the size of the pre-sale to preserve the option of substantial fundraising in the future. The reasoning for this is similar to that for traditional equity IPOs. Ask yourself why traditional companies don't sell 80% of their shares in an IPO. Why do companies going public usually sell only a fraction, like between 10% to 15%? It's because they don't want to let go of too many shares at the beginning. Later, when they have grown and when (if) more funds are needed, they can sell shares at a higher price and gain more "bang for the buck."

[hammyburger]

My opinion:

First of all: I've been in PTS, Keyhottee (a founder), BitsharesX all from the beginning. I am not heavily involved on this forum but I do download everything right away, test things out, give feedback directly to Stan on occasion, etc. etc I do participate on reddit. <---------- Those are my creds.

I think it doesn't make sense to try to pull an ethereum for this DAC. Nor do I think you would pull off anywhere near that large of a fundraiser. I would look to Storj's underwhelming fundraiser as that is more likely how a BTSMUSIC fundraiser might go.

What's more, there has already been a public announcement about what PTS/AGS holders will get. Folks acted on that public information. It would be a significant hit to the community in going back on that. Is somebody alleging that 1) the individual responsible for that public announcement didn't have the authority do so OR 2) we now realize they are incompetent and wish repeal it?

As much as this is an out of the way forum - it is a public forum.

If you ask me, with Invictus's leadership a fantastic, faithful community has been built and continues to grow. The community is dedicated which means less speculating and more holding, testing, evangelizing, etc. It would seem better to get the protoype going and get some music changing hands on peershares and the music blockchain.

And yes, let folks who invested and continue to invest their hard earned dollars in PTS/AGS get paid for having the sense to spot a solid vision and putting their faith in some great visionaries.

But, then again, I'm highly biased by my meager holdings.


EDIT: Insert "Invictus" instead of just Dan and Stan.

[joele]

@ JoeyD, I completely agree with you and others regarding the need for money to pay for all the future development and costs so even if I was completely against an IPO in the beginning I have re instated my position in previous posts.

All I am saying though is that most people have linked BTSX to all the other DACs (DNS, Music, Lotto etc...). If BTSX fails completely the confidence will significantly drop and all the other DACs will be doomed as well, no matter how much capital they raise through IPO. PTS-AGS shareholders are the most believers in the success of the DACs so awarding them more shares, which essentially don't give up easily creates appreciation of the company.

If the IPO is not a success and doesn't get much funding as intended (no new money are injected) there will be additional selling pressure and the DAC will not succeed. IMHO it is more likely to succeed from people who own shares and bought at $3.5 - $4.5 (PTS-AGS) and give more initial value to the DAC from the beginning rather than risk a big portion of the shares to a unsuccessful IPO.

Having said all that a hydrid model is more likely to succeed.
PTS/AGS/Foundation/ IPO1 30%/30%/10%/10% and the remaining shares in reserve for future distribution or for IPO2 maybe?

 

[mf-tzo]

@ JoeyD, I completely agree with you and others regarding the need for money to pay for all the future development and costs so even if I was completely against an IPO in the beginning I have re instated my position in previous posts.

All I am saying though is that most people have linked BTSX to all the other DACs (DNS, Music, Lotto etc...). If BTSX fails completely the confidence will significantly drop and all the other DACs will be doomed as well, no matter how much capital they raise through IPO. PTS-AGS shareholders are the most believers in the success of the DACs so awarding them more shares, which essentially don't give up easily creates appreciation of the company.

If the IPO is not a success and doesn't get much funding as intended (no new money are injected) there will be additional selling pressure and the DAC will not succeed. IMHO it is more likely to succeed from people who own shares and bought at $3.5 - $4.5 (PTS-AGS) and give more initial value to the DAC from the beginning rather than risk a big portion of the shares to a unsuccessful IPO.

Having said all that a hydrid model is more likely to succeed.
PTS/AGS/Foundation/ IPO1 30%/30%/10%/10% and the remaining shares in reserve for future distribution or for IPO2 maybe?

[oco101]

Even a 30,30,10,30 split might be a hard sell, because to outsiders it will look like 60% going to privileged investors and the people actually paying for it getting a measly 30%. How would you feel about crowdfunding a project like that, where you pay all development and startup costs for 30% of the stake. Just see the bitching about not getting 70% for providing no funds at all and talking about dilution and all that, if anything that only proves the validity of my point of view.

I agree completely.

[JoeyD]

I agree with Joeyd on the distribution, I'd much rather have 10% for AGS/PTS with a big presale/IPO giving major financial backing to the developers. Look at Ethereum, they've got something like 15 million dollars in funding so far, imagine what cob et al could do with that kind of backing.

What will they do exactly? That is the question...

BTSX already had a lot of funds from AGS. If they use the funds to boost hugely BTSX, Music and all other DPOS DACs will experience automatically a huge boost as well. If BTSX fails hugely no matter how much funding Music and the other DACs have for further development I don't think anyone will invest or care about them.

BTSX is the 1 product that needs to be boosted and all others will follow the same pattern. No need for huge IPOs imho. Just some small percentage to cover basic costs, marketing and development. 10%-20% IPO is fine I think.. Anything more than this will make PTS-AGS shareholders diluted and selling pressure from them will increase and drive the respective DACs shares down..

Peertracks is not a project funded by ags/pts or btsx, so how do you come to the conclusion that they need just some small percentage to cover basic costs? How are they going to even host and build the website, bandwidth and storage then? How are they going to pay for marketing? How do people even see this project getting of the ground with just the PTS/AGS-airdrop and nothing else?

I might be missing something, so feel free to correct me where I'm wrong, but if they do not get enough funds from their IPO your undiluted shares are worth nothing. Come on people 20% (combined pts/ags) in a project that might actually work, is a lot better deal than getting 70% of a project starting out bankrupt that hopes to defeat Apple, google and Valve and the like.

Even a 30,30,10,30 split might be a hard sell, because to outsiders it will look like 60% going to privileged investors and the people actually paying for it getting a measly 30%. How would you feel about crowdfunding a project like that, where you pay all development and startup costs for 30% of the stake. Just see the bitching about not getting 70% for providing no funds at all and talking about dilution and all that, if anything that only proves the validity of my point of view.

[mf-tzo]

I agree with Joeyd on the distribution, I'd much rather have 10% for AGS/PTS with a big presale/IPO giving major financial backing to the developers. Look at Ethereum, they've got something like 15 million dollars in funding so far, imagine what cob et al could do with that kind of backing.

What will they do exactly? That is the question...

BTSX already had a lot of funds from AGS. If they use the funds to boost hugely BTSX, Music and all other DPOS DACs will experience automatically a huge boost as well. If BTSX fails hugely no matter how much funding Music and the other DACs have for further development I don't think anyone will invest or care about them.

BTSX is the 1 product that needs to be boosted and all others will follow the same pattern. No need for huge IPOs imho. Just some small percentage to cover basic costs, marketing and development. 10%-20% IPO is fine I think.. Anything more than this will make PTS-AGS shareholders diluted and selling pressure from them will increase and drive the respective DACs shares down..

[svk]

I agree with Joeyd on the distribution, I'd much rather have 10% for AGS/PTS with a big presale/IPO giving major financial backing to the developers. Look at Ethereum, they've got something like 15 million dollars in funding so far, imagine what cob et al could do with that kind of backing.

Presales also serve the very useful purpose of bringing in fresh blood. While PTS/AGS are already far better distributed than your average altcoin, I feel there is a need to get more people into the system, and a well publicised IPO will help with that. Yes there might be legal costs, but you should also discount them by the marketing that you get through the IPO. I think Bitshares MUSIC is something a lot of people will get very excited about, so it's a shame to not try to capitalise on that through an IPO. Just my 0.02 bitUSD...

[oco101]

So far nobody seems to know the answer to this next question.
Will this be a ecosystem where everybody can start up shop and issue their Brand/Songs whatever on the blockchain (without peertracks) and where peertracks just so happens to be first to market in this new specialized artist-blockchain ecosystem? Or is this a new ITunes style centralized website concept, but just with a more public database in the form of a blockchain?

The blockchain is used to issue artistcoin and where all the trading takes place,also is use for minting bitUSD collateralize  by notes .
 PeerTracks is the centralize  website where the song will be uploaded and downloaded and artist and user will register.  That's one of the reason they need lot's of money from the beginning , there is a lot of tech involved to pull this thing off,  a ton of work to be done off blockchain.
I like the hybrid system proposed by Cob, so they will have money at the beginning and then they can raise more as need it. I really thing this thing could really be huge but the execution must be perfect.

[JoeyD]

PTS predates dpos, the mining is a relic of the past that needs to be fixed.

Here's how I see PTS. It now has become an auditing and investors voting DAC. When launching a new DAC you give enough percentage stake to PTS that people will bother to make a decision and because buying and selling PTS takes actual money, the votes are not free and have value. This means it is both a marketing tool, it generates a little hype (later on this might get bigger), but it also works as a stamp of distributed community approval and gauge on what the crowd mind thinks of your project.

However people seem to forget that the musicDAC is NOT an Invictus project. At least that's what Dan Larimer said in the last Mumble hangout that I listened in on. Invictus/bitshares apparently has only occasional contact in an advisory role, but are not part of the MusicDAC team. Inversely that also means that the musicdac is not getting any financial benefit out of the AGS or PTS funds at all.

For all short term Invictus projects PTS/AGS can expect a large part of the stake, because those projects were actually paid for by PTS and AGS. Also if Bytemaster and team play their cards right, their cut of the pie could grow with the ecosystem and offer a sustained funding pool for their operations. So it makes sense for them to honour PTS/AGS for a larger amount, seeing as those are their investors.

But for this team outside of Invictus/bitshares this is a different matter. They need funds and that means getting the most hype and people. Trying to sell to newcomers that they will be providing the funds for the new project and in return for forking over the cash they'll get 20%, might not be the best marketing strategy in history. Also keep in mind, the musicDAC will gain jack all from honoring PTS/AGS in terms of funding.

So from my perspective,a split like  10%PTS - 10%AGS - 10%Foundation- 70%IPO (This is the polar opposite of the current plan btw) would be totally acceptable and might have the best chance of succesfully getting of the ground. Provided their concepts and design are actually sound and they do the marketing right. I also wouldn't mind if it was 10/10/80 with the promise of using 60/70 or whatever for future IPOs.

BUT and yes that is a big BUT, the PTS investing voters need to know what they are taking a position in and giving their stamp of approval. For now I can't find any clear answers on how the DAC part of the project will actually work. So I can't actually give any sound argument about a proper share split, because I have no clue about what is being split up in the first place, or how funding is planned for the project or anything. Keep in mind I'm not calling this a scam, but I do think you should regroup and do this snapshot plus the launch in a better way. And stop the current one.

So far nobody seems to know the answer to this next question.
Will this be a ecosystem where everybody can start up shop and issue their Brand/Songs whatever on the blockchain (without peertracks) and where peertracks just so happens to be first to market in this new specialized artist-blockchain ecosystem? Or is this a new ITunes style centralized website concept, but just with a more public database in the form of a blockchain?

Not only should the answer to the above be clear without a doubt, but even this pts-snapshot should be marketed and clearly announced on all appropriate channels and be part of the pre-hyping. Is there even a website with a countdown or the completed whitepaper, or something?

I'm not trying to destroy this project, I really want stuff like this to succeed, but this is not the right way to do it in my honest opinion.

[cryptillionaire]

Shouldn't we take snapshots of new DACs like btsx for the sharedrop, not just pts/ags?
Hell.. wouldn't it make sense to take snapshots of multiple cryptocurrencies/dacs so that the music dac got more exposure?
PTS isn't DPOS, has a centralized gpu mining distribution and everyone dumps it the day after a snapshot.

[JoeyD]

I would NOT cancel this. People have purchased PTS on the basis of this announcement. All any of us need to know is that there will be a fundraiser also, for a limited percentage of the total shares, so PTS is not the only way for new people to get in. It's still very, very important to keep this date and maintain that credibility.

No.

PTS buyers should have collectively reacted to this before I did, we are not too late to fix this. But to leave it like this will be a far bigger blow to credibility, for the entire community as well. Because they will be held accountible for letting this go on, without contention. We are talking about a 35% stake here and this is like a backroom premine now. Honestly I don't give a rats behind about what the tiny market of PTS holders think when their goal is to make this into their own invite only private music trading platform just for pts-members, because that is not a DAC that will succeed.

[fuzzy]

Cob will be there tomorrow for the Dev Hangout so I am sure it would be a good place to answer questions in depth.  Some of these points are very well made...and we are still learning best practices with each DAC kind of "testing the waters".  The community has a very important role to play in telling DAC developers/delegates what is expected of them so I say we should definitely consider giving it time to talk about.

shit .. and I will again miss it .. damnit ..

You can always download Plumble for mobile access...or listen from the website

[xeroc]

Cob will be there tomorrow for the Dev Hangout so I am sure it would be a good place to answer questions in depth.  Some of these points are very well made...and we are still learning best practices with each DAC kind of "testing the waters".  The community has a very important role to play in telling DAC developers/delegates what is expected of them so I say we should definitely consider giving it time to talk about.

shit .. and I will again miss it .. damnit ..

[fuzzy]

Cob will be there tomorrow for the Dev Hangout so I am sure it would be a good place to answer questions in depth.  Some of these points are very well made...and we are still learning best practices with each DAC kind of "testing the waters".  The community has a very important role to play in telling DAC developers/delegates what is expected of them so I say we should definitely consider giving it time to talk about.