Found this article pretty fascinating about one of the big fractional investment companies that came out in the boom and is now struggling and might be an outright scam, allegedly.
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Reminds me of the new Coffeezilla video about Liquid Marketplace where they were selling fractional shares of the Illustrator
Worth watching if it interests you but obviously it’s deep in the internet drama
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Is the tl;dr the market dropped and they can’t afford payout requests for shareholders?
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Has anything good whatsoever came from fractionalising collectibles on mass like this?
I’m not talking about a few people privately deciding to go in on a card together, but these platforms that allow tons of people to own a small slice.
They all seem to end the same way.
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It’s even worse! The operating documents specifically say the management of collectable can put their own interests above those of investors, they aren’t returning phone calls, and even when investors make offers above the market they are ignoring them. They also had to stop trading because they missed an SEC filing
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Maybe some legal precedent down the line? 
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Pyramid Scheme…
The sad thing is that there was absolutely no way to see this coming…
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Imagine how funny it would be for one of them to go to court claiming he wants his percentage of the card and owns like 5%, then the judge sides with him and orders the card to be cut so he can get his part.
A man can dream.
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Sometimes a company’s failure is the most important contribution that it brings to a hobby.
I think it’s a shame that there were people who wanted to participate in their hobby a particular way, put money up to do so, and then got abused by opportunists. Regardless of how someone feels about the idea of fractional ownership, the hobby should be a safe place. You should be reasonably confident that when you interact with a company, you’re going to get at bare minimum the service being advertised to you in one form or another.
It seems to me that the logic of, “the terms cover this in our favor” is weak. If the specifics of the terms undermine the nature of what is being sold in the first place, that is wrong. Furthermore, to participate in an ecosystem for a period of time with the company and witness one interpretation of their duty to you, only for it to be sold and provide an entirely different interpretation/service, is maddening.
I’m not convinced that there isn’t a case to be had here. It seems to me that these people were advertised ownership. If the enforcement of the governance structure imparts zero influence and recourse, I can’t wrap my head around how that is ownership. Additionally, the provision of services related to that ownership for a period of time does set an expectation of what you’re going to get. And the services were advertised to be SEC-compliant, which the new owner has simply let lapse.
It’s a curious case to me. I wish the investors well. If the owner only has a little over a million bucks into the company, it seems like you could make this more trouble for him than it’s worth in court. Unfortunately, that may be the best shot. If the details of the article above are to be believed, it’s not a big leap to suggest that it seems the new owner just thought he was getting a literal steal on some cards he wanted.
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Surely there is a breach of contract once they aren’t SEC compliant?
Unless they put in some legalese to say they wouldn’t be, but pretty sure illegal contracts can’t be enforced anyway.