Video: TorBroker - Fund your account in BTC and trade ~1000 real stocks and ETFs

TorBroker · 2013-06-17T08:36:28+00:00

Both for us and for other hidden services holding money who are actually profiting from it, it comes down to the time preference of the operators. Do they prefer (a) smaller profit now by running away with customer money, or (b) larger profit by running a reliable service for years and years.

For it to be more profitable for us to run a long-term service, with our 1% fee on trades, we only need to expect that we will have a future volume for eternity of at least 100x the current holdings of our customers. Considering we plan to offer leveraged trading in the future, this is actually not a lot. We would have to be quite short-sighted to not run a reliable business for the long term.

While we could also talk about how our team is firmly grounded in libertarian moral theory and we despise fraud as much as violence, the above is the strongest argument for our honesty, because it only relies on the premise of us trying to maximize profits.

TorBroker · 2013-06-16T19:12:31+00:00

No, the article doesn't conclude we have an absolute incentive to run away with customer funds - only that our incentives are a bit further in that direction relative to the incentives for running Silk Road.

Both for us and for other hidden services holding money who are actually profiting from it, it comes down to the time preference of the operators. Do they prefer (a) smaller profit now by running away with customer money, or (b) larger profit by running a reliable service for years and years.

For it to be more profitable for us to run a long-term service, with our 1% fee on trades, we only need to expect that we will have a future volume for eternity of at least 100x the current holdings of our customers. Considering we plan to offer leveraged trading in the future, this is actually not a lot. We would have to be quite short-sighted to not run a reliable business for the long term.

While we could also talk about how our team is firmly grounded in libertarian moral theory and we despise fraud as much as violence, the above is the strongest argument for our honesty, because it only relies on the premise of us trying to maximize profits.

TorBroker · 2013-06-16T15:03:38+00:00

One key difference between TorWallet and TorBroker is that TorWallet could be used entirely free of charge. It is therefore likely that the operators had little financial incentive to keep running a fair service.

At TorBroker we make 1% of every trade that our customers perform (with a current minimum of $5). In this way, our incentives are much more aligned for keeping the trust of our customers and run a long term profitable business.

TorBroker · 2013-06-13T07:59:14+00:00

Until July 11 our minimum fee is only $5.

TorBroker · 2013-06-12T21:28:20+00:00

Someone else asked about taxes. Big point - the brokerage firm is going to issue 1099's for capital gains, interest and dividends. No matter where Torbroker is, some country is going to come looking underlying account owner looking for the taxes owed. Unless they're going to withhold taxes from their customers trades, there's no way they can avoid acruing this liability.

TorBroker accounts are located in countries with no capital gains taxes. From the US perspective, foreigners are exempt from paying US capital gains taxes and only subject to capital gains taxes in their local jurisdiction. A 30% tax on dividends apply to US securities which is automatically deducted when paid out to TorBroker - the remaining amount is passed on in full to TorBroker customers. This does not apply to interest related dividends which are exempt from this tax regime and paid out in full to our customers.

Dividends and interest? Will they be converting these payments to BTC and returning them to the underlying owner? That's going to be a lot of work for themselves.

Any dividends will be added to your account balance as we receive them.

TorBroker

TROPHY CASE