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I'm guessing that if you download the wallet following the link on the web page you can buy it through that, but I haven't done it myself.
In the comments section on one of the DeepCapture website essays someone speculated that the two cryptos would be RavenCoin and this one:
https://flo.cash https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/flo/
The reason for both is that they have some association with Overstock. Since he is cutting all associations with Overstock I wouldn't assume that he'd necessarily choose either of these. I would guess that Bitcoin would be where he'd put the bulk, and the other could be anything.
I think they said that they would announce the new plan in as little as three weeks. I imagine that the new distribution date will be quite a while after that, considering how far in advance they announced the previous date.
Patrick Byrne's investment strategy
From https://www.deepcapture.com/2019/09/a-message-to-my-former-colleagues-at-overstock/#comment-1082230
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For these reasons it may give you some comfort to know what I am doing with the capital generated by the sale of my stock: after paying tens of millions in taxes (after all, “We didn’t build that,” right?) by Friday the rest will be in investments that are counter-cyclical to the economy: Gold, silver, and two flavors of crypto. The gold and silver are stored outside of the United States, in Switzerland, and within two weeks, will be scattered in other locations that are even more outside of the reach of the Deep State, but are places that are safe for me. The crypto is stored in the place where all crypto is stored: in mathematical mist, behind long keys held only in the memory of someone who is quite good at storing such things in memory (with paper backups in the hands of a priest I met 35 years ago who never sits foot in the West).
>>
I guess if we take him seriously we should be thinking about our own portfolios. I wonder which cryptos he is buying? Would Ravencoin be one?
I'm not 100% clear on all this either. Here are my disjointed thoughts.
1. The tZERO app on our phones is a crypto wallet, not the tZERO system. On the google play store the app is called "tZERO Crypto." You can buy only cryptocurrencies there, not the digital preferred or tZERO tokens, which are "securities."
2. Note that the web address of Dinosaur is https://dino.tzero.com, so tZERO has something to do with it.
3. There is something called Pro Securities. Here is a sentence containing these words: "The tZERO platform, operated by PRO Securities, is the premier market for the secondary trading of tokenized assets." (from the tZERO website).
4. From the Pro Securities website https://www.prosecurities.com
- "PRO SECURITIES IS A FINRA MEMBER BROKER DEALER WHICH OPERATES AN SEC-REGISTERED ALTERNATIVE TRADING SYSTEM"
- "A subsidiary of tZERO Group, Inc. , PRO Securities pioneered the first reported trade of a blockchain-based security in 2016 and, since January 2019, it faciliates secondary trading of security tokens through the PRO Securities ATS."
With regard to PB's comment about trading the digital shares on an app, I'm guessing he was just mistaken. I'm still undecided whether that it is significant or not.
Whimsical thought: with PB being out of a job, maybe he's sitting around drinking coffee and reading our comments.
Anyway, I'm glad you asked that question as I would like to be 100% clear on all of this. Like what exactly is a tZERO token good for again?
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I think you or someone mentioned Pat talking about trading our digital dividend on the Tzero platform. As opposed to Dino. Not clear in my mind why we have two trading platforms?
Hmmm ... reviewing the details of Byrne's trades, I see things differently now. In the SEC filing it shows the first sale at $21.83. From this I assumed that the stock had already dropped from $29 to around that level when the trading took place, and therefore there must have been an event that happened earlier, such as advanced notice of the delay of the dividend. But looking at the details ...
1. $21.8353 is the weighted average sale price for the 1,505,123 shares sold on September 16, 2019. The shares were sold in multiple transactions at prices ranging from $19.745 to $25.50 per share, inclusive. The reporting person will provide, upon request by the SEC staff, the issuer, or any security holder of the issuer, full information regarding the number of shares sold at each separate price.
2. This Form 4 is filed jointly by Patrick M. Byrne and High Plains Investments LLC. Patrick M. Byrne holds 100% of the voting interest in and controls High Plains Investments LLC. The securities described herein are or were held directly by High Plains Investments LLC, which was a ten percent owner of the issuer. The address of High Plains Investments LLC is 700 Bitner Road, Park City, Utah 84098.
3. $18.6618 is the weighted average sale price for the 2,141,646 shares sold on September 17, 2019. The shares were sold in multiple transactions at prices ranging from $17.57 to $20.35 per share, inclusive. The reporting person will provide, upon request by the SEC staff, the issuer, or any security holder of the issuer, full information regarding the number of shares sold at each separate price.
4. $16.3183 is the weighted average sale price for the 1,056,690 shares sold on September 18, 2019. The shares were sold in multiple transactions at prices ranging from $16.01 to $17.28 per share, inclusive. The reporting person will provide, upon request by the SEC staff, the issuer, or any security holder of the issuer, full information regarding the number of shares sold at each separate price.
... he started selling at $25.50, which if you look at the chart for that time period (things were going up and down after the steep rise), is not such a remarkable drop. So is it possible that it was as much about the number of shares coming onto the market, rather than short sellers working with improperly obtained information? I guess the question still is how much short selling was done in the 9/16 to 9/18 timeframe. If there was impropriety, I wonder if there could be a lawsuit, and if so, would existing holders be involved or just people who bought in that timeframe.
I called up Schwab to see if I could find out anything about recent events. Basically there was a lot of uncertainty about how the digital dividend would work, so they called in all the short sales. There was some uncertainty as to how or even whether people who had their shares loaned out would receive the dividend. Maybe they'd receive cash in lieu of shares, but what would the cash equivalent be was not clear. It basically sounded like the brokerage would send a list of shareholders and their number of shares to Overstock and they would have to take it from there. I told the guy that the same thing is going to happen again in a few months, the only difference being the shares will be immediately tradeable, but that didn't change anything in his mind. I also asked when they found out that the dividend was being delayed and was told 9/18, which is when Overstock announced it. My main takeaway is that I will plan to take back my loaned shares in advance of the next date of record for distribution.
My first thought is that I understand what Byrne did and that it should make no difference to the ongoing business of the company. Also, the drop over the course of the two days he sold was more due to the sudden availability of millions of shares, rather than the strength of short sellers. So Byrne is no longer associated with the company in any way, and that should be a good thing in theory. But my second thought is not so cheery. If Byrne does become a household name and enemy number one of the cabal, it still helps their story to be able to call him the former CEO of a "failed" company, especially one associated with blockchain ("that's where you buy drugs, right?").
I understood it to mean that all borrowed shares had to be returned, meaning all the shorts had to cover. If this is true then for some amount of time there were 0 shares short (ignoring the possible existence of naked shorts and the like). This all is adding up pretty well. On Sept 9 I got a notice that my loaned shares were being returned to me. At that time the share price was about $17. The share price quickly rose for no apparent reason to hit a high of 29.75 on 9/13. Then just as quickly the bottom dropped out and we are back where we started.
BTW MaryMary158, you said a while back that you were selling half your stake, possibly to buy back in later. Just curious (if you don't mind my asking), what did you end up doing.
If this is true:
"My broker just told me that ALL shares of OSTK were recalled due to the confusion with the token dividend,"
then we have an idea of what kind of gain can result from the shorts being forced to cover. So not $1000 per share. I really wish I had called my broker ahead of all this. Anyway, it will be very interesting to see what happens when the next attempt to distribute the dividend occurs.
I was a little taken aback by this from Byrne:
"To receive it, each recipient (that is, each shareholder) would have to obtain from Overstock’s new blockchain capital market firm, tZERO, one of tZERO’s new wallets that can hold such a blockchain dividend."
The tZERO wallet doesn't currently support holding the preferred tokens, at least as far as I can tell. You need an account with Dinosaur to hold/trade.
Overall I'm still optimistic that things will work out for Overstock. My only frustration is that I have been thinking about selling the small number of shares that I bought a long time ago that are still in the red, and every time it's peaked I haven't been able to pull the trigger. This is partially because when it's hard to sell when it's going up, but also because I have bought a few shares of the series B preferred recently and I'm not sure if the wash sale rules would apply.
The highest I ever received was around 39%. Your 55% figure was probably what the short seller was having to pay. So we see that being the intermediary in this transaction is lucrative for the brokerages.
Finally some clarity. 1) Byrne's message said that the reason for the dividend was both to get people signed up with tZERO and to screw the illegal shorts. 2) The SEC's action seems to address the aspect of the dividend that I thought was not kosher, which is that the short sellers would have no market in which to buy the digital shares they needed to cover their obligation. The SEC said they can pay a cash equivalent instead. So the company will redo it later and make the shares received immediately tradeable. As I see it we will have a repeat of what we've seen over the last few weeks when the new deadline appears. The only question is will the plan work this time, or will the SEC bail out the short sellers again?
Other notes:
3) Oddly, my OSTK shares I had out on loan were returned to me a few days ago, and stayed unloaned even amidst Reg SHO being invoked. Today I got a new request to borrow. The interest rate being paid to me is 20%.
I know this will go against the grain here, but I'm not sure that the SEC would not be right to "disrupt" the dividend. It would be one thing if it were only going to cause a problem for illegal shorts, but it also causes trouble for legal shorts. Short selling is not a crime, it is part of the normal functioning market. Don't forget that one of the services that OSTK is trying to provide is "digital locate receipts," which are something to support the process of short selling. All that being said, I would like to have a better understanding of whether the dividend will cause any problem to the market of not. Stocks spin off shares in new companies all the time, and somehow things work out. The only differences I can see are 1) that the new shares will trade on an exchange that few people currently have access to, and 2) the shares will not be tradeable for a few months. I still wonder if maybe the idea is not to screw the shorts, but rather to get people to sign up with their trading system.
Here is something about the tZERO token. It comes from an announcement of the ICO.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/10/24/1152717/0/en/Patrick-Byrne-Announces-Key-Details-on-tZERO-s-ICO-at-Money-20-20.html
"The tZERO token will incorporate profit-sharing features of a security as well as utility features of an app token, including:
- Token holders will be able to use the tZERO token to pay for fees on the ATS and payment of such fees using tZERO tokens will grant up to a 25% discount as compared to payments made using U.S. dollars. The tZERO token is expected to have additional functionality and token holder benefits to be announced at a later to date and will be included in the offering memorandum; and
- tZERO believes its token will be the first to offer a percentage of tZERO's profits, distributed as a quarterly distribution paid into tZERO token holders' digital wallets."
I don't think that the tokens are in any sense shares of tZERO. In the disclosures on Dinosaur it said that tZERO is owned 80% by Overstock, 19% by a small group of private investors (many being company insiders) and 1% by employees in the form of incentive options. Anyway, reading the above does not get me too excited about buying the token. There is probably more current information out there though. If I find anything different I'll post it.
I have started thinking about tZERO tokens as an investment, versus OSTK shares. I looked at the disclosures on Dinosaur but couldn't really understand. Does anyone know what exactly a tZERO token entitles you to?
Both MGX and MGX Renewables are up big lately. Over the last 5 days Renewables is up 198%, and MGX is up more than 50%. MGX's gain is all over the last 2 days.
Up big today. I was skeptical about the short-covering thesis, but guess what, my shares that were lent out to short sellers were returned to my account today.
I think there is a difference in the way it updates the current $US value in the wallet. I didn't really notice it before, but now the screen flashes in an unpleasant way.
I just signed up to use the beta version of the tZERO Crypto app. Is anyone else running the beta? There are a few minor differences. I want to be able to give feedback to the developers, but I'm not clear how that would be done.
And here's the big dilemma:
"1. Onboarding Quality Issuers
The foremost priority is to bring high-quality security tokens to the PRO Securities ATS. Brooke Navarro, who was recently appointed as Head of Business Development, is spearheading this effort and has laid out a robust pipeline of potential issuers. Expect the announcement of new assets in the coming months."
The dilemma is that quality issuers already have access to quality markets. It is the low quality ones who could benefit from listing. For example, when a stock is delisted and goes onto the gray sheets it becomes difficult to trade, and moving to this system could be an improvement. The dilemma is that PRO would not want to become known as the place for crap stocks.
Here's what I don't understand:
"4. Launching the First Regulated National Security Token Exchange with BOX Digital Markets
Lastly, we continue to work with our partners at BOX Digital Markets on launching the first regulated national security token exchange through our joint venture, the Boston Security Token Exchange (BSTX). We will continue to update you as this progresses. We are currently aiming for an early 2020 launch."
So PRO Securities ATS is not a regulated security token exchange?
For the most part a good update. The main negative is that some of this is hard to understand for someone who is not knowledgeable about markets. With regard to the dividend there is this, which clarifies matters a bit:
"2. July 30: Announced the OSTKO digital preferred dividend that will trade exclusively on the PRO Securities ATS, operated by a wholly-owned subsidiary of tZERO.
This dividend, which has a record date of September 23, has the potential to introduce tens of thousands of new investors to the PRO Securities ATS. Given the digital preferred shares trade exclusively on the PRO Securities ATS, broker-dealers representing Overstock common shareholders will need to subscribe to the PRO Securities ATS in order to allow their clients to transact the dividend directly. As I mentioned on the recent Overstock earnings call, introducing more investors to the platform is a key priority and this announcement should serve as a catalyst for enhancing liquidity."
My takeaway is that PRO Securities ATS is an exchange, analogous to NYSE and NASDAQ, and that what they want is for your regular broker to have the same relationship with PRO as they have with other exchanges. So ultimately they are not trying to get everyone signed up with Dinosaur.
MGXRF (MGX Renewables) has more than doubled over the last few days. I wonder if maybe once it showed up in people's accounts there were some who just wanted to get rid of it and sold without considering the price, and now it's finding a fairer value. It is a bit of a nuisance to have in the portfolio (my shares are worth about $100). Did they ever say anything about a value to use as a tax basis?
I am not hopeful that the dividend is going to cause any sort of problem for the shorts. Basically, I don't think that the institutions running the markets would let it happen, and this is probably as it should be. Keep in mind that companies spin off shares in new companies all the time without any sort of massacre of the shorts. This situation presents a new wrinkle, but they'll figure something out. Keep in mind that the basic distribution to the longs also presents a hassle to the markets, but they'll work that out too. I think the point of the dividend is not so much to screw the shorts as to force/encourage the longs to set up accounts on Dinosaur. Even this could backfire as some people or institutions might decide to get out to avoid the hassle. The other thing is that they said if you don't have a Dinosaur account when the distribution occurs then the shares will be held for you in some sort of custodial account. I can see some people just ignoring the situation indefinitely. Overall I am more and more seeing this as a risky move by the company, and it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.
I watched the interview. It was okay, but not great. I think if we were just talking about the ecommerce business then this guy would be fine. But the big blockchain vision needs Byrne's charisma behind it to generate enthusiasm. I also thought it was fishy that he didn't mention that the tZERO wallet is affiliated with Overstock.
I watched the video. I hadn't really known much about the magnesium mine before, so I learned a lot there. The permit they got allows them to basically extend their "sampling" or whatever you call it of the property, which would hopefully increase the known deposits. Apparently they screwed something up in the past and this caused a big delay in the permit. He said that a mine in North America can not compete on price with the existing foreign producers. It would take tariffs and maybe a government subsidy to be competitive. The subsidy would be justified because the resource has some strategic applications. I also noticed that he referred to mining as their core business, which is interesting since it's been pretty much all about the water processing since I've been here.
As to the water, I think it was said that one facility started processing in July (though I can never tell if it is really happening, or just some further test phase is taking place) and another thing will start in 2 months.
Doing a periodic check-in here.
I see that the Aladdin blog is still being updated. Lots of stuff about environmental damage from miners. The only problem for Aladdin is that mercury poisoning is only a part of the damage. We can't help with deforestation, etc. A lot of links on the page lead nowhere. http://www.aladdinseparation.com/2019/08/the-brazilian-gold-rushs-impact-on.html
There were a lot of trades on 5/14/2019. Since then only these two:
08/13 0.0001 1000 OTO
07/24 0.0001 21000 OTO
If I am counting the decimals properly, the 8/13 transaction amounts to 10 cents.
Looking at crypto wallets.
tZERO: I noticed the addition of ravencoin on the tzero app on 8/21 and bought $100 worth. I put in similar orders for bitcoin and ethereum on 8/19 and they have yet to complete. I think all the delay has to do with getting the money from the bank, because it says if you use the credit card option (with higher transaction costs) it will go a lot faster.
Edge: I wanted to make a small buy via the Edge wallet to compare. There has been a problem in the set up phase which has required interacting with the customer service of Wyre, which handles one of their methods of payment. Still not there after 4 days.
Ravencoin wallet: it turns out there is a ravencoin app put out by Medici Ventures. I installed this just now and have been navigating around. As far as I can tell it does not provide a means to buy ravencoin. In contrast to the tzero app, I had to enter my pin about 20 times while getting it figured out. Not sure what to do with it now that it is set up. The only meaningful action I can see to take is "Create New Asset." The support page does not work.
Once my purchases on tzero go through I will see if I can move some coins around.
Here is good information from Overstock about the logistics of the preferred dividend:
https://help.overstock.com/help/s/article/Shareholder-Information
For example, it addresses the case where you don't have a Dinosaur account.
Here is a more detailed page for trading info on MGXR:
https://www.thecse.com/en/listings/technology/mgx-renewables-inc
I don't know to what extent PB was directing development, but I think that the loss of him as spokesman and evangelist alone is significant.
I'm not really sure what you are saying. Is there a symbol, bid, ask, share price, volume, ... ?
My MGX Renewables continue to sit in my account identified by just a number, with no bid, ask or trades. Is it the same for everyone? Maybe it's different for Canadians?
I will be very interested in how this story is covered, if it is covered at all, by the non-financial media. If anyone sees anything please share.
Initial market reaction is positive, which I guess makes sense since the price dumped on the original news of the situation.
Yikes. I guess trading is stopped at this moment, as the price has not moved a bit since I started reading the article. I have no guess what will happen. As for PB's future, it took a while to get to in the article, but here is: "I now plan on leaving things to the esteemed Department of Justice (which I have doubtless already angered enough by going public) and disappearing for some time."
I submitted a picture when signing up on the app, but when I made purchases it did not make me take a picture to verify who I am. I definitely do not like being logged in automatically, so if someone can figure out how to turn that off please share. I will add that I have had the Edge (formerly called AirBitz) wallet for some time, though I've never made a purchase on it. I will try to make a purchase there and see how it compares.
Yep, there it is. A couple of other questions. I am automatically logged in to the app just by opening up my phone. Is it this way for you? I don't see how to change it. Also, in the help section is says "for every transaction, users are asked to take a picture of themselves so that we can verify the rightful owner of the account is the on authorizing the transactions." This did not happen when I entered my purchase orders. Did it for you?