Jim Robinson, a co-founder and managing partner at RRE Ventures stated in an interview with Bloomberg his intention to bid on the next USMS auction. Tim Draper also confirmed his intention to bid via an email sent to Bloomberg News earlier today. Both men are investors in the exchange "Mirror" which recently re-branded from the name Vaurum.
Robinson told Bloomberg that because Draper won the last auction, it puts him in the "prime seat" for the next offering, confirming that the auction is nothing more than a charade.
"They were able to conclude the transaction, it went off without a hitch, the Marshals were happy, the buyers were happy, the markets were happy."
Asked what he thought of the recent price decline, Robinson told Bloomberg:
"We just don't yet know what the regulatory bodies, of which there are several, are going to do. We do know that they're all working very very hard to define parameters. Parameters around consumer protection, parameters around legality, around what we all AML/KYC, so that's all happening now.
What that means is that various aspects of the government have said OK, this is here, it's going to stay, how do we ensure basic protections? Because you don't have that defined today, I think there is some amount of downward pressure for that, there has been certain transactions on the market in recent months that have caused price declines, so called bear whales, folks selling big blocks.
My own speculation is that there is no real price discovery at the moment when you consider something like three trades out of four are OTC."
Robinson speculated that the price will rise and not drop as a result of the auction.