You explained it well enough, but your final statements still begs the question of why they don't hold and let it run! My opinion, and only my opinion, is that most of these note holders are involved with some institution. The institution has policies and financial goals that are established and they are expected to adhere to them. The discounted shares are essentially the interest that they are expecting ( which means that if they are owed $1, they probably get more than 10,000 shares at .0001 because of the discount. That is where they make their money). Their philosophy is not high risk/high reward it is generally lower risk/ calculated return (reward). So they are not going to hold for a billion dollars. Too risky! Just my thoughts and opinion!