Bitcoin Forum

Is anyone interested in starting a Bitcoin provision Insurance fund that will refund people who have had bitcoin stolen or lost them in a scam or somehow.

 It would be quite simple website where people donate to the fund and will payout to people with adequate proof proportionate the amount required that have lost their bitcoins somehow,

This could maybe included on individual sites, like BTCjam, like what ratesetter does if someone defaults on thier loans

What do you think of the idea? could it work somewhere?

Interesting idea, but who will fund this you?

We are all in some point get robed old something like that but me and more other lost coin on some exchange due to hack (mintpal for me)

For this you have to have not just idea but funding ass well you will not ge it if you said it for other plus you are low rank on forum and need someone with trust to backup your idea.

Anyway good luck with it.

Well, it is a good idea but I am wondering how it should work. How will you ensure that someone has been scammed? There are too many ways to fake a scam. ???

Expect tons of bitcoin users with fake sad stories about
how they loose their coins

It's a nice project for me, because I recently got scammed by a site :'( But, however honesty is the most important think for this site :)

I think I'm going to test it on here first,

The idea now is:

1. To have a board of 6 - 12 experienced bitcoiners that hold each hold the amounts donated / sent to the fund.  We could also use Copay a shared bitcoin wallet, where a majority need to approve the suggested payment.

2. Cases and presented to the board and then reviewed, through an initial hearing and then if it progresses onto further more detailed hearings.

3. Appropriate Evidence needs to be given depending on the amount to support their case.

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4. People could also insure their activity online with sufficient monitoring for a fixed fee each month proportionate to the risk.

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So I am looking for,
Several experienced people to hold funds,
People to contribute by donating / insuring onto the fund
People who have lost their bitcoins had them stolen to present their cases,

Thanks for your interest, look forward to your reply, Hopefully by filtering through the case with this method, only genuine people who have lost their bitcoin will recieve a payout

I would not donate, but I might invest.  And as an investor I would want an iron clad guarentee that teh claimants are legit.  If auto insurance fraud is easy, then what would bitcoin fraud be?  I like the idea but I am unsure of the implementation.

I think the trust fund could be emptied by one scam and the then it will take years to accumulate enough funds to insure against another. For this idea to work, funding the trust is the hardest part. You should charge an insurance fee for each address a person owns to join the service and only that address is insured, not all the addresses a person owns.

Then, there is the investisgation and protect against fraud part. When the insured coins are "stolen" and sent to another address, it is very difficult to prove the same person do not own that address too.

It's a nice idea, but it won't work.

That seems like a good idea, but it would be rather hard to put into practice.

The Bitcoin could be stored in a multisig address which would require several people to sign the transaction. How would the signers and board be chosen to review the cases? Also, it is very hard to determine whether Bitcoin was stolen or not since people could fake them and try to scam the insurance to pay them.

The idea seems very nice but the only obstacle is that bitcoin is not like fiat that has a stable rate.
For example if someone insure 1 btc when the price of btc is $300 and the claim occur when the value of btc become $800, i guess this will have negative effect on the account balance because one btc is one btc.

I think they will be delaing only with BTC.
So it doesn't matter what the price of BTC is.

Other than that, I think it will fail due to fraud.

It's good idea, maybe you can held some crowd funding on indiegogo campaign.

Also you need make some verify account, for more trusted people.

That is what I was thinking along side of price fluctuations the project is quite prone to failure.

That's an interesting idea.
However, it could carry a lot of issues, since it could open a new method for scammers to take advantage. And... who would fund this? Do you have a plan?
So if you're really interested in starting such site you should consider that people might take advantage from the insurance, and what are the best methods to keep track of it!

It's a good idea, but insurance in the real world is not only for people who got "scammed" per say. It may be due to just losing your wallet, or other random acts like that.

It is also hard to prove a "scam"

As for everyone asking how to fund this...just like every other insurance company. People who sign up with you pay a monthly fee. Hopefully the monthly fees amount to more than what you would owe. If not, it shows something about this community...

A better way might be to still have the "panel of bitcoin experts" just for reviewing the case & then if credible pass it over to the public for funding, They will be able to see all the reports of the case and make their own judgement.

This eliminates the need for the board to hold their funds in this new format.

It works somewhat in the way at BTCJam does with loans where they have to approve the loan listing and then the listing is then presented to the BTCjam members and they judge whether it deserves funding.

More looking for someone to do it with rather than on my own,

Thanks,

Graham