> Contract law says that a quote is not considered an offer and only acceptance of offers makes for a legally binding contract, according to Cornell Law School.
> Here’s what needs to happen for a quote to turn into a contract:
> - Supplier submits the quote to the client
> - The client accepts the quote and issues an order
> - The supplier accepts the order
> For example, a wedding photographer emails a written quote to a client for $2500 for 10 hours of photography. The client emails back saying they accept the quote and want to proceed with the order. The wedding photographer emails the client again to thank them and confirm that they will do 10 hours of work on a certain date for $2500. A legally enforceable contract has now been established.
If you're holding a yard sale, and I point at some knickknack and ask "how much for that?", and you say "it's a dollar" and I say "that's a deal", that's a contract.
Take from this what you will.
If you move forward and actually execute on it, sure.
If you then immediately say "actually, no, I've changed my mind", without making any motions to give the item over, it's hard to imagine that'd be considered breach of contract.
True, but manifest intent to form a binding contract on the part of both parties is.
> If you’re holding a yard sale, and I point at some knickknack and ask “how much for that?”, and you say “it’s a dollar” and I say “that’s a deal”, that’s a contract.
Probably not; contract law would probably view that as a negotiation where only you manifested an intent to form a binding contract, so unless there was some positive acknowledgement of your “that’s a deal”, no contract would be formed.
I mean, I’m pretty sure that a near identical scenario to that was the one the of textbook demonstrations of the absence of that contract element in my Contracts class.
Same. I'm also really curious now how the clock will handle changing the text for the current day, from an animation point of view.
Is it his? Fantastic if so.
The code for that 'did the rounds' back in the early 00s. I had it on my site for a while, but changed the code so the outer text spun like a sort of bouncing helix around the outside of the clock face. I never did know where the code came from though, and I had a note in my page source saying "Is this yours? Is it OK that I'm using it?"
Looking at this page's source it seems to have come from "www.rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com", though that site appears dead. It was referenced from an HN comment as recently as 2018 though...
Well, whoever you are rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com, thanks for the clock and the memories. I haven't seen that in nearly 20 years.
I'm not up on domain name pricing. What would you estimate the fair price to be?
https://enaming.com/recent-sales
https://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm
https://www.namecheap.com/blog/top-domain-sales-of-2021-so-f...
Wormhole is a cool sci-fi word. A fun word that most people know and don't already associate with another brand. It's high tech, it's something at the frontiers of science, it's fast and futuristic. Easy to spell, easy to remember, and easy to build a new brand around.
"Galaxy.com" recently went for $1.8m, apparently, and that's like a better version of "wormhole".
Comparing to recent sales, I'd say Wormhole could easily go for $800k+. With the right buyer, maybe upwards of $1m.
Meh. He’s the same age as the current US president and rather close to the prior. Warren Buffet, sharp as a tack at 91, just wrapped up another Berkshire Shareholder meeting. Jump appears to be very much in the wrong here, but I don't think we need to characterize this as the domain owner is feeble-minded or out of touch: the guy has owned a domain since 1994.
similarly I don't think it's reasonable to compare every 79 year old with two people that have had the most privileged lives imaginable.
it's extraordinarily common to live to a healthy old age when you have teams of people coordinating your schedules, traveling teams of chefs and nutritionists available to define your diet to the gram, and an accompanying traveling medical staff wherever you may need to go.
79 years old for those of us that had less glamorous lives can be * a lot * older than you'd imagine when comparing them to others -- to such a degree that age as a comparison is wildly speculative at some point.
When I was younger my version of an old man was anyone over 30. I kept upping it the older I got.
I used to throw around the "Don't trust anyone over 30."
Now that I'm much older, I still don't trust most old adults, and I'm one now.
Looking back my definition of old is more akin to being wealthy, sneaky, money grubbing, shifty dude. The kind of guy who uses lawyers, instead of a handshake.
It's crazy but in my mind the "old man" is the guy running this crypto company.
The rest of the actions or how we feel about the power dynamics are not really relevant.
https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/hft-in-my-ba...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-08/the-gazil...
http://www.amsterdamtrader.com/2014/09/hft-in-my-backyard.ht...
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/priva...
They employ skills such as kernel driver optimization specialists to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of network card drivers.
What the fuck are they doing messing with this? Yikes.
edit - I answered my own question. These dudes specialize in arbitrage and being faster than everyone else. The crypto markets are insane with this right now. The professional frontrunners have entered the game.
Keeping your name out of the press and staying secretive is incredibly important and I'm shocked that they didn't just throw a fair amount of cash to this guy directly or offer it up as a donation to some Carl Sagan foundation (and offer to let him keep his e-mail address). $200k for a shop like that is literally the shells of peanuts and worth it to keep your name out of people's mouths.
Have long been in the game.
With free data and free APIs being ubiquitous in this industry from the ground up, its too tempting
Tradfi is not competing and largely in the same place it was 15 years ago. Have fun with paying to implement FIX protocol
On the other hand I believe FTX basically made their money trading arbitrage between the Asian and European markets on the price of bitcoin.
These folks showing up in your trading arena means you've left money on the table and they're going to take that, and maybe some extra.
Wormhole and Pyth and two projects they contribute quite a lot to all in the open.
Little did he know that Jump Trading has already spent $300 million propping up the legitimacy of this blockchain.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/crypto-network-wormhole-h...
1994, when he registered it, was a great year for domains. As the article says, everything was still available. I registered all sorts of goofy things, but back then no-one was thinking they would be worth anything. They were also FREE in 1994. Shortly after they started charging a yearly rate for dotcoms and I let all but one lapse, to the loss of many millions in future revenue...
The basic elements required for the agreement to be a legally enforceable contract are: mutual assent, expressed by a valid offer and acceptance; adequate consideration; capacity; and legality.
Jump made an offer of $2,500, Dick said the price is $50k firm, the other party immediately accepted. This was in writing, which gets around the Statute of Frauds given the value of the contract is over $500. This seems very straightforward from a legal perspective. I do think that crypto people are super scummy, but the only remedy available when there has been all the elements of a contract existing but one party reneging is a legal remedy either for specific performance or monetary damages, so it's natural that Jump went to court to enforce the, what I would argue is, valid contract.
However, there must be an intent to enter into legal relations by both sides, and I'm uncertain that Merryman's actions demonstrate this. Further, I'm not sure that stating a price for the domain alone provides sufficient certainty of terms for there to be a valid contract (there is no discussion, for instance, about when the domain is to be transferred or when/how payment is to be made). The details of the initial communication from Jump may be relevant here - say if they invite counteroffers and it is clear they want to enter into a binding contract, or the other details are specified by them and the only part Merryman proposes changing is the price. It's also interesting that "Jump subsequently raised its bid", as this could be seen as an acknowledgement that no contract was formed at the earlier stage.
IANAL but I use the internet and I know that everybody on it has an opinion about legal matters.
He merely received an offer that satisfied his criteria - he did not agree to also accept that offer. See 323's post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31227141
According to the message history in the court filings, Merryman responded on July 1: “The price for wormhole.com is a firm US $ 50,000. -Dick-.”
To Merryman’s surprise, Jump agreed.
Indicates that there was a counteroffer for $50k and an acceptance of that offer. 323's post is wrong because quotes are not the same as what happens in the offer/counteroffer/acceptance contract dance, they're a different thing. Quotes are related to performing work for a price.[1] Here it was Offer => Counteroffer => Acceptance.
[1] https://www.freshbooks.com/hub/estimates/is-quote-contract
Generally, if the parties don't have a signed agreement, but act as if terms in an informal exchange are binding, the court will uphold the informal agreement even if one of the parties changes their mind. But in this case, the undisputed evidence is that one party didn't act as if they were bound by their informal correspondence.
And furthermore, courts have almost never upheld an informal/unsigned agreement between a corporation and an individual as binding against the individual.
the one with more similarities would be that you would have asked the dealer to sell at $28k, the dealer says $30k and you say okay.
secondly the courts accept verbal contracts unless there is a statutory carveout for a specific kind of agreement, the courts require proof to rule which verbal contracts happen to lack. so if you did it over email, or did it through a broker's portal that says using it is a binding contract, then a court would have the proof, which is the logic of the actual case here.
Yes. What’s your point?
Another example would be real estate listings, to which this is quite close. They have a definite list price, realtors most certainly say things like "the price is $XXX", and yet it's still on any potential buyer to submit a formal offer to buy with a specific price which the seller may or may not accept. If this weren't the case and such communication was considered positive offers, then we would rarely see things like houses being sold over their asking price.
The other remedy would be some sort of monetary damages. I would say that would be something like whatever it costs to purchase a comparable domain, but it would be really hard to decide on what a comparable domain is.
Another remedy would be damages, like you said, but what are damages here? Probably nothing, so even if Jump won it would just be symbolic under that theory.
The average person, who has no idea what cryptography is, only hears of "crypto" in sound bites on MSNBC or Fox News, and hears advertisements for a VISA crypto card, the only card powered by crypto! and they think exactly what OP thought.
This would be the biggest concern for me. Would you trust yourself to update the email address with every single account/organisation you've registered it? I use my personal email even for government-related stuff, there are hundreds of places where I've used it. I wouldn't trust myself enough to relinquish my domain for any amount of money.
any amount? For 60k you can probably hire an assistant full time to go through all your emails/browsing histories and switch them over.
I'm not sure exactly how this would break down, but I imagine the agreement could lay out specific responsibilities and penalties.
It's funny to see so many people trying to justify the ridiculous. My children try this all the time.
> And while Merryman's view isn't reflected in the court filings, Goldstein said his "statement that the price is a firm $50,000 could reasonably be understood as a counteroffer, which Jump had the power to accept, thereby forming a contract."
Jump imagines the seller cares about their long-term reputation for honoring their offer as a market-maker.
He could not give a hoot.
A verbal or written counteroffer is not a contract. How long does Jump imagine they have to accept counteroffer? Eternity? Silliness & slimy legal jiu jitsu.
Generally in situations like this, unless otherwise specified, courts would fall back to a “reasonable” period of time or until Jump is notified that the offer is no longer valid.
Sounds like a bad business practice. I’ve seen this logic in other circles “quote higher for someone you don't want to deal with” without acknowledging what is binding.
I think a judge is necessary to determine DomainAgent’s brokering role with this specific property owner, because nobody knows and it is the crux of the case.
Their claim is such a reach that I hope the owner doesn't pay much in legal expenses.
How long does an offer stand? What if someone offered to sell 1 bitcoin for $100 10 years ago, would that offer be still standing and be required to be fulfilled?
Merchant law and private seller law are two very different things.
I think Goldstein is over-stating and over-reaching what an offer and counteroffer implies.
Private sellers of assets and services are free to renege any deal - even after the contract is signed. After the contract is signed, then it is a matter for the courts. No contract was signed or implied to be signed in this case.
In a private sale there is no verbal contract law - A: "How much for the lawn mower?" B: "$50 firm" A: "Sold!" B: "I don't want to sell." Verbal or written, there is absolutely no implication of a contract or acceptance of the contract at that point. Though this very much varies by state and would be governed by the state of NV.
Just because an entity states they are authorized to act on a deal, does not mean they have that authority. There was a scummy domain broker around a few years ago that would send you a snail mail letter of intent to purchase your domain for a stupid low amount, with a cheque attached, and failure to respond to the letter after a certain number of days indicated your willingness to sell at the offered price. Depositing the cheque indicated your acceptance of the contract. Holding on to (or destruction of) the cheque indicates your acceptance of the contract. I know of quite a few people with high value domains who had to lawyer up to stop the transfers from taking place.
It appears to be a very clear case of a business' legal team overreaching what constitutes an agreement of sale in the hopes of either scaring the owner of the asset, or swaying opinion enough to have a judge side with them. I suspect they will not prevail in their initial filing, and then they will argue for domain squatting. I doubt this will end amicably for either party.
> you need to cite some authorities on
P.S. I don't need to do shit.
Westley: You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept.
Couldn’t they simply add a provision for this in a deal? Like “we’ll own the domain but we will maintain a redirection for your previous email address to a newer address of your choice”?
Or the other way around “we’re buying ownership of certain DNS A records like “www” and “@“.
Has this ever been done?
As for the latter, they will still want to use some email addresses on the domain and not want to rely on a 79-year old individual to manage it for them.
1: I think there’s merit to the case in that the domain owner said they’d sell for 50k and that can reasonably be seen as a binding offer. The courts may decide one way or the other, of course. But -
2: The offer did not go into any kind of detail on things like when transfer of control would take place! It could be “immediately” or “20 years after the seller’s death”.
2. There was no offer to sell, only a declaration of a price.
It doesn't seem they even tried this in this case? So this should be a dismissal right away, albeit at great emotional/monetary expense to the original owner. Unfair, but yeah, cryptobros will be cryptobros, and any harm to members of society is just for the good of society, I'm sure...
(Later edit: so, apparently I'm wrong, and there is no binding arbitration clause. Still, lame action, and this seems the exact situation arbitration is designed for, especially since 'local courts' is not exactly well-defined for .com...)
> Under the policy, most types of trademark-based domain-name disputes must be resolved by agreement, court action, or arbitration before a registrar will cancel, suspend, or transfer a domain name.
> ... file a complaint in a court of proper jurisdiction against the domain-name holder ...
Emphasis mine. You don't have to choose arbitration.
Why not? The whole story seems like a contract dispute, which most definitely is in the jurisdiction of local courts.
I think you mean "arbitration".
Why do you think the UDRP has any bearing on what Jump can do in court? ICANN can't make up rules that apply to third parties; there's such a thing as privity of contract! The UDRP may be incorporated into the contract that Merryman agreed to with his registrar, but Jump isn't a signatory to that agreement.
actions advertize louder than popups
There are a very small number of shareholders (though, to be pedantic, the correct term is "member" rather than "shareholder" since all the related US organizations are LLCs rather than corporations) and it seems extremely likely that those members would agree with the firm's actions here.
The article doesn't seem like a terribly big deal to me. I think both parties are being obnoxious. Essentially squatting on a nice domain name, asking an exorbitant sum for it, and renegotiating after a deal is accepted because you think you "left money on the table" are all obnoxious behaviors. Suing someone over what was never a terribly firm or serious offer also seems obnoxious.
That's not squatting just because someone with money wants it.
Maybe squatting isn't exactly right, because he's not trying to sell it, but it seems closer to squatting than using it to me.
From the little information in the article, it looks like this is how it went down:
Jump sent an unsolicited email to Dick, offering $2500 to buy the domain.
Dick did not want to sell and phrased that as "The price for wormhole.com is a firm $50000", expecting nobody would want to pay $50k for it.
Can the latter be seen as a binding offer?
Given the sum of the circumstances, my feeling is that it can not. A one-line reply to an unsolicited email with a price 20x the initial offering is not really signaling a serious will to sell.
If an email with a number in it was a binding offer, then what is a contract for?
Edit: I see that you edited in an additional paragraph at the end of your comment after my initial reply. If you’re editing a comment after-the-fact, it’s good practice to make it clear for future readers.
In this case, Jump agreed to the price the person set, and then the person didn't give Jump the opportunity to pay. Where I live I'm pretty sure this would have been a binding agreement, though there's definitely some exceptions to that law that might or might not apply here.
However the rest of the terms have not been negotiated. Timeline and transfer details have not been discussed.
For timeline I suggest: When the moon is in the Seventh House And Jupiter aligns with Mars
As for the "transfer ceremony", I leave that to your imagination
An informal (unsigned) written agreement can still satisfy this requirement...so long as it represents the intent of both parties to be bound by the contract. But there is correspondence by the domain owner to Jump that he did not throw out the original $50k price expecting it to be accepted or to form a valid contract. And before that correspondence he didn't act like there was a binding agreement.
However, the $100k follow-up email by the domain owner would represent a firm offer that would satisfy the statute of frauds. It doesn't appear the $100k was accepted, and Jump is suing for the $50k price. Ultimately, they will spend a multiple of the original price on legal fees...to try to get the original price. (That assumes they win at court. I would estimate that there is a <1% chance they win if this goes to trial, or to appeals. They chose the wrong hill to fight on.)
Most likely outcome: Jump settles for $100k plus the domain owner's legal fees.
Bloomberg quotes a corporate lawyer who claims that the $50k price constituted a "firm counteroffer," which could be accepted, but they chose the wrong expert to ask.
Generally, for contracts between corporations and non-corporate entities, legal formalities are required to make the contract binding. This almost means a signed written agreement where the terms of the exchange have been specified.
Between corporations, or between individuals, courts have been willing to relax the requirements for formalities (meaning, not requiring signatures, or not requiring a single document laying out the agreement between the parties). But between corporations and individuals, courts have been very, very insistent on observing legal formalities, due to the extreme power differential between the parties.
It's very likely that Jump will settle this case. Even if they somehow win at trial, the domain owner can simply appeal and keep hold of the domain name for years before the appeal is resolved.
I hope he crowdfunds his legal fees if it comes to that. It would be an apt way to fire back at people claiming to defend public goods, and the negative PR would worry Jump almost more
I’m sick of living in a society where wealthy people are able to bully and harass others.
No corporation would feel bound to honor a price tossed out casually in an email with nothing signed — and it’s disgusting they’re suing an old man to bully him.
Why is it crypto people are so gross? — how can I take the current state of crypto seriously when a “major” platform acts like petulant middle schoolers?
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
People/companies suing people over domains isn't new. See for instance, nissan.com
They are desperate to become the new middle men so they fight dirty.
Yeah, I don’t get how they see this as a good move.
Sorry to shatter your illusions, that's not specific to crypto at all. Disney lawyers are far less child-friendly than the company's content, and so is pretty much every major corporation. Just this week, I remember Zara (the fashion retailer) sueing a one-woman-run boutique named House of Zana. A bit before they also sued a women's empowerment business called Tara Sartorial (yes, because of likeness of the names). The number of tiny independents that Jack Wolfskin has sued for putting anything resembling an animal footprint onto pretty much any fabric is countless. We could go on here.
Eg, Disney is currently suffering major financial losses due to being associated with child grooming and trying to overturn democratically passed laws.
Is your point that I should accept the grotesquery of a major company suing an old man because others behave badly?
…How does that make sense?
> Sorry to shatter your illusions, that's not specific to crypto at all.
This is also a petty ad hominem that requires an uncharitable assumption about me.
Far from shattering my “illusions”, you just revealed your own cynicism and low standards.
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/ot...
Because some people do not give a fuck. We're talking about people who support valuation of assets based on speculation with no actual economic value while pumping out oceans of CO2 and wasting copious amounts of energy to have computers, to simplify a bit, guess a number somewhere between 0 and 2^255 for the privelege.
Seems on brand.
> Merryman hadn’t been serious about selling, he said, throwing out what he viewed as a high offer to get them to go away.
If he wasn't serious about selling, he should have said so and moved on. It seems smarmy to quote an offer price without a sincere intent to sell.
Merryman is 79, and receiving emails about selling the domain he's owned for decades. He has never asked for these emails, and just wants to be left alone. He throws a highball offer, hoping they'll go away. He then clarifies that he doesn't want to sell, which he is of course fully allowed to do. Then they sue him.
I would say there are smarmy actions in here, but not on the part of Merryman.
Jump's original bid is 2,500 dollars.
View it from the eyes of a guy that retired in 2001, or any reasonable person, and $50k for a domain is an absurd amount that should have been tantamount to "I'm not selling, take off."
Not sure what "kqeducationgroup.com" is but it looks illegitimate.
- $100’000 seems like a rather generous compensation to change your email address.
- And most importantly, they simply agreed to his initial demand. And now he’s backing off out of greed. Hell they even agreed to his second counter-offer of $100k and now he wants $200k…
The point here is:
- someone with knowledge of something’s value tried to by something - person who owned it realized that they didn’t know the value - person realized the value and decided he wasn’t going to undercut himself.
Now in this situation, you’re calling the 79 year old man greedy, rather than the company being greedy? The company that is fairly-clearly trying to run an old man over with legal fees to steal something that they don’t own?
1) Parent post never accepted an offer to sell their house to you.
2) $50k is not ample compensation for any house almost anywhere, as shown by median housing prices.
If I say "it's worth about twice that", are you now allowed to evict me? I think not.
There’s no world where Jump should be suing this person. There’s no contract here. Jump is just being greedy and is trying to bully this person into selling the domain.
If you don’t want to sell, they say “this domain is not for sale”. If you say the price is a “firm $50k”, well, it looks to me like you’re willing to sell for $50k. And I don’t think he was bullied into coming up with this offer.
He's not obligated to sell it for any amount of money, and he's definitely not done anything that he should be sued over.
He's free to be as greedy as he wants to be, and the company are free to either pay up or go away. But bringing him to court because "wahhh he won't sell to us" does seem ridiculous.
Order is of the essence here.
They offered initially $ 2,500.
Then he replied saying that the price was $50,000.
Then he rejected the offer of $ 50,000 and was offered first $ 100,000 and then (through a different agent) $ 200,000.
Of course IANAL (and know anyway very little of US Laws) but if this corporation really-really believed that the $50,000 reply actually amounted to a binding contract, they should have attempted to have it respected immediately, the two later offers, doubled each time, sound nothing like "good faith" (probably irrelevant in court, still ...).
I think they were willing to pay more than initially agreed to expedite the process. Since it didn’t work I’m pretty sure they’ll ask the court to execute the sale at $50k.
However even if this was his long con on owning the domain having proposed a number in email seems unlikely to form a contract that he must sell it to them at that cost but I suppose we'll see.
Not getting a current market value offer an blindly accepting isn't greed. Being 79 with a domain you carried for years can be worth more than 100,000 which after taxes is much less.
What do you think motivates the algorithmic trading company trying to buy the domain?
Tech companies: we exist to make the world a better place
Everyone on this planet is greedy.
- The church priest asking for donations
- the homeless man asking for drug money
- and the software engineer with competing FANG offers.
At least finance people have the balls to admit it.
I guess actually everyone is greedy in this story, but only one party doesn’t seem to be true to their word.
