Well, we’ve rolled out the first stage of the new ThotMarket economy. I’m too tired to write a comprehensive overview of everything that has changed and the reasons for them, but here are some highlights:
Fixed Shares:
When you create a new thot you now have to enter a total number of shares to bring to market. You also have to enter the number of those shares that are available for trade with the public. The rest are shares that you hold privately.
When all the shares on the market for a given thot are purchased, trading is frozen until more shares become available. That will happen when: someone sells shares, the thot manager adds more shares, or releases shares from his/her private stash.
If another user buys more shares than a thot manager, then that user acquires control of the thot.
Controlling Thots:
The majority stockholder for a given thot has a controlling interest in that stock. They act as the thot owner. When shares are purchased by other traders, this value is transferred to the thot owner. The thot owner (manager/controller/or whatever we end up calling them) has the ability to add additional shares to the market. This is important because since there is now a fixed number of shares for all thots, they can only climb so high. It going to be more work and more expensive to nurture a thot to the top. The controller can ensure that no other trader can gain control of the thot by making sure that they own more than 50% of the total shares. BUT, there’s a catch…
Thots are now ranked by Market Capitalization:
Previously thots were ranked solely by their trading price. Now, they are ranked by Market Cap, which is the product of the trading price and the number of shares owned by traders (other than the thot owner). Therefore, the more shares that are owned by the public, the higher the rank will be. But, the more shares that are available to the public, the higher the likelihood that another trader will acquire control of the thot.
Thots can be acquired:
As discussed above
Owner shares will erode with inactivity:
For each day that a thot owner doesn’t log in to the system, they will lose 4% of their controlling shares to the public market. That way, users that have been run over by a bus, or gotten a new girlfriend, won’t wield permanent control over their thots.
Stock will split above $1000/share
When trade price exceeds $1000, a 2:1 split will occur. This will not effect the Market Cap, or shareholder’s balances, but it will help make things more affordable for other users.
The Massive Windfall Tax is gone (sort of)
This much hated monster is no more. For the time being, however, there is a cap in place that will not allow to to amass more than a billion thollars. Hopefully that cap will be removed soon, but I want to keep it there at first, as we see how the new economy performs.
We messed with your shares/balances
Yes, in order to do the migration, manual manipulation of the market was done. Unlike previous occurrences, I don’t believe that we reduced anyone’s balances, or shares. Instead we added shares and thollars to some. This was done mostly to ensure that the original thot owners have a controlling share of their thots at first. Its now up to them to decide how to manage the thots. We felt this was the most fair tactic. Also, some money was injected into the lower class.
I forgot to mention, there’s no more cap on the number of shares you can purchase.
The next set of things will include more reporting mechanisms. For example there is not currently a reporting mechanism for users that shows when stock splits have occurred, or thots have been acquired by other traders. Obviously this is vital information for traders.
I’ll write all this stuff up more formally for the site in a bit. If things go nuts in the market, I may put the brakes on again. In many ways this is like starting over, so I’m sure that there are problems, bugs, etc. In any case, have at it.
