log☇︎
916100+ entries in 0.607s
ezdiy: rpietila is apparently starting with the bitch army and maybe turn out to be not elaborate troll and come up with something
ezdiy: mp first build something tangible, then the bitch army
ezdiy: truffles: rpietila took it from the other end
asciilifeform: ezdiy: I think you misunderstand. I'm not trying to convince MP of anything in particular. Just playing out a thought experiment: what would happen if MPEx actually had competition.
truffles: i think he'll last a while, he has minions
ezdiy: asciilifeform: the general term is jerk irl :)
mircea_popescu: i won't be there to see it likely, but anyway.
mircea_popescu: at which poin tyhe deal becomes jpmpex vs bgex
mircea_popescu: i can probably exit to jpm for a billion at that point anyway.
mircea_popescu: +1000 points for me for being so cool. will any of the big people switch to him ? maybe so. maybe not.
ezdiy: asciilifeform: you're wasting your time, btw
mircea_popescu: ok this i wish to see.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: sure, I agree, this is a stretch of the imagination. but let's imagine.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform and he's doing this on pgp ?
mircea_popescu: ezdiy again people underestimate what goes on in the background.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: ok, let's stick to clones. Picture Bill Gates, a hypothetical BGEx with a 5 BTC fee.
ezdiy: be the underdog and wait for the uber dogs demise
mircea_popescu: if you mean start a competitor with an angle, it all boils down to whether the angle a. actually helps you and b. is good enouigh to push you
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform now you're talking angles.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: there could be logical reasons for starting one's own "MPEx, with blackjack and hookers." Say I want to use evil altchains. And, AFAIK MPEx shares are non-voting, so it isn't that I could buy enough of them to make MP do this deed.
jborkl: anyway, what time exactly do options expire MP? in UTC?
ezdiy: its easy to measure growth
mircea_popescu: o the team fortress thing ?
ezdiy: would it make sense to invest in mpex then?
ezdiy: and bundled their cola with it?
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: By this logic Pepsi ought not to exist, they should just re-sell Coke?
mircea_popescu: a. you buy s.mpoe shares b. you try and make a competitor.
ezdiy: jborkl: competition eventually overcomes the network effect resistance
asciilifeform: jborkl: true, just as there is no semiconductor plant owner with the good sense to drop some of his pocket change on building a million ASIC miners and running them in his own mansion.
mircea_popescu: you decide it has to burn in this space.
mircea_popescu: so srsly asciilifeform, let's say your reputation is enoug, and you have 10k btc to burn.
jborkl: strike one and two
mircea_popescu: once that happened it's impossible to finance a clone anymore.
jborkl: Wait, I trust MP - so who is this you are proposing? Just some random asshole with a website?
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform im not sure what the incentive is exactly. you'd finance a clone rather than buy shares because ... ?
asciilifeform: what I'm rather hazy on is how well MPEx would hold up against a "good enough" clone that meets the basic criterion of "not being an outright scam" (AFAIK none of the MPEx competitors have met this standard) ☟︎
mircea_popescu: "if the next trade happens a year or so from now i'll be very happy"
mircea_popescu: buffy is famous for having told his bh specialist
asciilifeform: ok, someone else with a bag full of BTC and a resonably good meatspace reputation, then.
mircea_popescu: last thing he'd do is that.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform problem with your let's suppose is that it's nonsensical.
asciilifeform: it fills up with trendoids
asciilifeform: Ok, let's see if I understand: the 30 BTC is for keeping MPEx a market full of people who measure 1000 times "before cutting once." No trendoids, etc. Now let's say Warren Buffet (or somesuch) opens WBEx, charging 1 BTC.
ezdiy: black boxes give room to a lot of speculation
ezdiy: so people are ok w/ bitfinex because its obvious what theyre dealing with
mircea_popescu: i think people grossly misrepresent what all is involved.
jborkl: Mp, has a stellar reputation. Unless you beleive asshole trolls and other people that are poor
asciilifeform: truffles: I meant the banal fact that MPEx works as it says on the box, and none of the vaguely similar services proved to do the same
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform it's a complicated web. no one has the competence, or the capital, or the reputation, or the connections, etc etc
mircea_popescu: people have this incredible ability to "be content" with anything. frog in boiling water experiment if you know it.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: How would you personally explain the apparent lack of competition to MPEx? Is it simply the fact that no one else has the "reputation capital" ?
mircea_popescu: is that it's how we ended up with shit on tv.
mircea_popescu: well the problem with the "as long as people are content" argument
ezdiy: your idea of rate limiting the market holds water
ezdiy: as long people are content with those, well why not
ezdiy: mircea_popescu: you do that at the cost of huge spreads though
benkay: and when money is involved as a core part of the business, many of your customers will in fact be bad customers without quality control.
mircea_popescu: i still think it is.
asciilifeform: ezdiy: I'm not clamouring to buy an MPEx account for a penny, just objecting to the notion that the fee is somehow different from taxi medallions
mircea_popescu: this induces huge volatility which then wrecks assets.
mircea_popescu: the problem with cheapo/clueless investors is that they follow trends
ezdiy: mircea_popescu: i'm not dismissing it, whatever the reason its totally legit
ezdiy: mircea_popescu: occam is cutting his veins though :)
mircea_popescu: ezdiy that absolutely isn't the rationale.
ezdiy: why people who dont understand basic market forces (if you have little competition, it makes sense to introduce artificial scarcity) want to trade on mpex?
benkay: most don't even buy the medallions
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: If I recall, most NYC drivers take out monstrous loans to buy medallions.
mircea_popescu: afaik it's just this nonsense to keep people who would like to work off
mircea_popescu: maybe the disagreement is borne out of me not understanding taxi medallions too well.
mircea_popescu: can you actually sell those ?
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: I imagine you could buy a medallion and sell it the next day, if you wanted to
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform is there a way i can run a cab in london just for a day ?
orkaa: i saw this on tv some time ago, it's real :)
ezdiy: asciilifeform: thats how it works
truffles: omg what is that orkaa!!!
asciilifeform: benkay: the bureaucrats (in practice) own NYC, and charge whatever the hell they want for taxi licenses. a bar can charge for entrance. nothing wrong with that. what I'm unclear on is why the MP fee is a different kind of animal.
benkay: it's not even that much money
benkay: asciilifeform what's the real name, then? medallions are a competition inhibitor, the exchange seat fee is just an "are you serious" check
asciilifeform: benkay: riffraff interested in automated trading are more or less written out of the script. MP runs his own house how he likes, I'm fine with that. But why not call things by their real names.
truffles: wants more money and people to agree with whatever he says
benkay: thanks mircea_popescu, feel free to pm it over
mircea_popescu: benkay there was some pretty good discussion with pgp on this, lemme d ig
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform well then everything's everything and wtf.
benkay: at least I think that's what he wants. open to correction on that count.
benkay: mircea_popescu would be only too happy to have more traders on his exchange, he just doesn't want to deal with the riffraff. he wants others to aggregate riffraff orders and place them on MPEx.
truffles: truffles: no soup for you >> soup nazi!
mircea_popescu: ezdiy ty
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: that's like saying that "eTrade" with its $x/trade fees is a perfectly good alternative to a seat on the NYSE
benkay: no no no, the role of taxi medallions is to reduce the number of taxis on the street
ezdiy: i think mircea_popescu plays the soupnazi part well
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform there's easy access for someone even with 0.1 btc. there's pts, there's brokers.
truffles: i just want the lunches
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: we were talking about the 30 BTC user account fee, right? rather than listings
mircea_popescu: there's historically been small corps listed, it's not that.
ezdiy: yet payola is the realm of criminal forums
asciilifeform: MP has said, in essence, that he doesn't want MPEx to become a Shanghai crawling with the equivalent of rickshaws.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform you're neglecting the entire geographical monopoly angle.
ezdiy: teenage is the important part
asciilifeform: Were it not for medallions, NYC would probably look like Shanghai (rickshaws, etc.) I'm fine with that, but the rulers of the place evidently aren't
ezdiy: truffles: seek 1:40 for teenage girl