Market Discussions

Because to make the isk in a week I first have to have the bond. And just because the strategy can earn enough to make that isk in a week doesn't mean that I am going to grind for six to eight hours a day when I neither need to nor want to.

A few other things to bear in mind:

Firstly, I didn't mention what returns the strategy could potentially produce until after the bond was filled, so the bond wasn't sold on the basis of those profit levels (indeed, I wasn't really sure about potential maximum profit levels until after I had received some isk and had played around with the plan a little bit). Rather, as the OP states, my objective is to earn 10bil a month and the bond was filled by people expecting those actual returns, not larger merely potential returns that will never materialise.

Secondly, since I have a documented history of producing similar profit levels in the past (not quite as high but pretty close), I don't see why anyone would be particularly sceptical about my ability to do so in the present.

Thirdly, as I mention in the OP, I am being assisted in the current plan by Rykker Bow's encyclopedic knowledge of Jita trading and he has a documented history of hitting exactly such profit levels in the past (the coincidence of the potential profit levels I mention and his historical profit levels is ... well ... not a coincidence).

I suspect the lack of suspicion directed towards this bond is also partly due to the fact that I have held greater public debt in the past and that this level of borrowing represents a decrease rather than an increase in potential risk levels.

Oh! That's what you find weird! Why didn't you just say so.

The answer is that when I took a one year break from EvE early last year I gave all my isk away (c. 400 billion) through various means

You keep using the word 'odd' but it's not really. I now find myself in need of a comparatively small income so I am pursuing a low effort business plan utilising isk from the bond market I have often turned to in the past.

You also seem to be implying that I'm lying about my ability to make these kinds of profits. Fortunately, at least some of those investing in this bond and commenting in this thread have a pretty decent idea of what I can do because they have either been prior business partners, or have held my api keys, or have audited me. Rykker, likewise, has been audited and had his profit levels publicly documented. So, I doubt any of the investors are terribly surprised by the potential profit levels I have mentioned.

But let's cut to the chase. We both know that the reason you are fussing here is because you're still rather bitter about the fact that I gave you a hard time some years ago about the opacity of your own business and the fact that you were unwilling to have any third party verification of your own claims when you were trying to raise public money. You rarely comment on bond threads but in the period since our discussions about your own business practices, most of the investment threads you have commented on negatively have been those of people who were demanding greater transparency from you. I think it's a bit of a shame that you still haven't got over that stuff but I am, regardless, still happy to answer any further questions you might have.

I don't 'make 120-150bil a month'. Please stop making claims on my behalf and then acting as if it was me who made them. I have told you repeatedly that being able to make that much is not the same thing as choosing to do so. I'm not sure why you are having such a problem with the distinction between the potential and the actual. I have made similar figures before but it's very tedious and it's not what I want to do with my game time. Is that ok with you?

And if you don't believe I gave my isk away I can only suggest you do some research. A fair bit of it was documented on this forum, including my signing all my active investments over to friends and VV's charity.

1) ISK sent.

2) I can confirm that RAW23 gave VAERT charity 35B (plus many other donations) before he left the game. I could not give them back to him when he came back as VAERT bylaws forbid for ANY amount of ISK to EVER come out of it except for forwarding to CCP (or unwinding the fund, then I'd give ISK back to the Donors).

Yes. YOU extrapolated a claim about potential earnings into a statement about actual earnings that runs counter to my own statements on the matter. YOU have tried to foist your unwarranted projection onto me as if it were my own statement. And you want to use YOUR OWN version, which does not correspond with reality, to criticise a bond with completely different objectives. Your approach is ... well ... bizarre is the politest word I can think of.

Edit - I'm also very sorry if these kind of potential earnings seem unreal to you. I know that they match up with the kind of figures your own business was posting as annual earnings using more than ten times the capital. But your inability to grasp what can be done with the markets in EvE is not my responsibility. If it's any consolation, I'm sure your earnings didn't require you to grind more than five hours a day, which is what these potential profit levels would conservatively need.

You forgot to say, that in all these years he never accepted to be audited once.

This lack of transparency, considering the hundreds of investor billions held for so many years, does not really entitle to go count the beans in somebody else's home.

Looking back over your posts you haven't asked a single question. You have made statements about finding things odd in an attempt to insinuate dishonesty on my behalf but you haven't actually asked any questions. None. Zero. If you have one, ask it directly and I will try to answer it. If you have a view about my honesty, be brave and come out and state it directly.

As to the claim you 'extrapolated', you got the figure right but the facts wrong. You seem to be trying to ask why I would need to raise a loan if I am making, or am going to make, 120-150bil a month. There are two responses to this. First, I have never said that I am making, or am going to make, 120-150bil a month. I have said that I could potentially make 4-5bil a day (hence your extrapolated figure is correct) but that I am not going to (hence your factual statements about the isk I do or will make are entirely wrong). Any attempt on your behalf to imply that I have said I will be or am making this amount of isk is a pure fabrication on your behalf, not an extrapolation.

Secondly, and forgive me if this seems condescending again, but there is this thing called time, according to which sequences of events are ordered. Now, and you seem to be a bit muddled on this point, you are suggesting that I don't need to raise any isk because I will in the future be able to make a certain amount of isk. What you are missing is the order of the events (that 'time' thingy). Before I can make any isk with my present plan, I must first raise the capital with which that isk will be made. It just doesn't work the other way around. I cannot use the isk I will make in the future as the capital with which I will make that isk. I must already have some isk in order to make that future isk, which is why I have sought some capital from the public market. I am a little suprised that you need this explaining to you as you have also raised isk on the public market. Think, for a moment, about how you would have responded to someone who said 'you don't need that isk because the business plan that depends on it will make you the isk you need'.

Is this any clearer for you?

Thanks!



There are a few problems with becoming a lender. If you invest in uncollateralised loans or bonds then there are a lot of dangers that tend to keep people away while it is quite tricky becoming a lender who holds their own collateral as you have to be trusted not to run off with it. A lot of people do lend indirectly though by placing money with Grendell. Grendell's operation has provided the vast bulk of all MD transactions in the past few years, so quite a few people are involved in the lending business through this. There is also the problem that, partly due to Grendell's success but also due to the sheer volume of isk floating around in the game, interest rates have dropped a great deal from a few years ago and I suspect many people just aren't interested in lending at 1.5-2.5%.

On a side note, I'm not sure if you are identifying me as someone who hasn't made the transition from borrower to lender but I have, in the past, made investments on MD and provided loans totalling somewhere in the region of 500 billion isk (of the top of my head). There doesn't need to be a binary distinction between lenders and borrowers either. In the past I have run bonds to borrow isk at one rate which I have subsequently loaned out at a higher rate, pocketing the margin. Quite a few others, including Grendell and TornSoul, have done the same.

wow, this topic... i'm not even sure why RAW is still putting up with this. even wit EVE being what it is, once the entire financial who is who supports a guy, you may want to lend him SOME credibility... whatever, getting another coffee and some popcorn.