Bitcoin Forum

Hi,
So something I've been thinking about is lending Bitcoin. For me to conduct trades over Bitcoin Talk, I usually ask the other party pays first (which usually means the trades fall through).

• Is it actually profitable?
• Will I get scammed to death?

Cheers.

If there is a chance of you being scammed then you will surly be scammed. Only ever loan Bitcoin if you can get a trusted 3rd party to hold collateral at 110%-120% of the value of the loan, which will at least cover you when they default. I doubt it is very profitable in all honesty.

Ah okay, thanks. But what really is collateral? If someone says they'll give a domain name for example, how do I know that really is worth more than the loan?

Is it profitable? Yeah if you could find trusted loaners which is hard these days.
Will you get scammed? Now isn't the right time to loan your money to someone else i think, too much scammers roam around bitcointalk atm. But, if you do it right you could get a stable income which is great.

if you use the right precautions to me it is a  profittabile deal, first rule of lending, NO collateral, no loan, if you do this your % of lost your money  is less

You can gain pretty much from lending lending BTC. But if you are not careful you can also lost all your money. Bitcoin give people some sort of anonymity therefore scam attempts while lending money are normal.
You need to create for yourself set of rules and always play by the book. Never lend btc without proper collateral, even if someone is trusted. Also you may want to have limit on how much BTC you can lend.

If you want to loan on bitcointalk then you should use Escrow to hold collateral or something and be sure of the valueof the collateral (Take Senior members or above i'd say) , yes it's profitable but you may get scammed .
there is also Bitfinex & BTCJam which are professinoal website for loaning and stuff you could get scammed AFAIK but they will give you the informations of the loaner if it happens (that's on btcjam , not sure about bitfinex)

Thanks for the replies.
Do people still scam if they give decent collateral? I was planning on asking for collateral with every trade anyway, I think it would push away most scammers, but not all of them...
I need some BTC first to be honest, I lost it all a while ago and have only just got back into it. Trying to trade, but my member status and ability to trust complete strangers is holding me back a little  ;)

If you are still concerned, try the escrow service that is given by trusted members. It could minimalize scam risk

I personally don't loan out any of my bitcoins & don't plan to. A lot of people do it successfully though & earn decent interest. You need to be careful who you deal with though as there is a high probability of getting scammed.

Look for people with positive trust (click on their profile, you'll see I have a trust score of 4 (-0) (+2) which means I have 0 negative feedbacks & 2 positive so somebody like myself would usually be safe to deal with).

Try & take a collateral as a condition of the loan, there are many escrow providers around here who can advise you well. Seek out Quickseller.

It's a tedious process honestly, yea you could ask for collateral and if they give you altcoins is all good but bitcointalk accounts as collateral are just painful, you have to either sell them which you might not be able to do so fast or join a sig campaign and pay for the loan yourself which is tedious so if someone ends up not paying you have to be dedicated to it and recover your money using your time.

I wouldn't do it. The risk far outweighs the reward in most cases.

Regarding collateral. Make sure it is something of high demand  so you can sell it easily. A domain may not be as good as you think as you need the right buyer for it.

What if you use BTCJam and do lending only for the A+ guys? To be A+ you need all sort of verifications, so it wouldn't be anonymous, which means they will do everything possible to be pay back. What would happen if they legitimately cant pay back tho, do BTCJam cover loses?

BTCJam is still a joke. A+ status doesn't really determine whether he/she is a scammer or not and there is lack of work from BTCJam to minimalize scammer

BTCLend hasnt been to bad, allows you to use collateral for your loan and has a international collection agency on retainer.

The point is if you lend it in bitcoin or in $

because if you lend it in dollar and bitcoin goes up, you would have got more profit holding bitcoin than lending and with less risk

I think I might proceed with it actually. Alt coins seems a good, solid collateral, even if I don't receive many requests because of it, I atleast will come out well if I'm not paid back.
Thanks :)

It can be profitable but the margins are small and the risk is great if you don't get sufficient collateral. How can the other party pay first though if you're the one lending the money? Do you mean send collat first? Most people wont trust you yet to send collateral first so you'll need to use escrow. Personally I'd avoid getting into the lending business as it's likely not worth the hassle and one scam is all it takes to ruin your total profit.

I ment collateral haha, I was planning in using an Escrow anyway, thanks for the input. I was planning on asking alt coins as collateral which may mean slow business, but a not so devastating outcome when I get scammed :/

First bullet: Yes, if you executed it perfectly and flawlessly. You can ask for 10% as the minimum interest rate for any loan and depending on how long will the loan term be.
Second bullet: Also yes, if you don't know how to sales talk the borrower. You must impose your own rules, and your rules should matter, not the borrower's. Always ask for a valid collateral when giving a loan. In that way in case the borrower defaults, you can take back what's lost in you and you can go on without accepting any losses.

Once you build up enough rep/trades you'll be able to take collateral without escrow, though using as escrow will be time consuming just for loans. I'd take forum accounts as collateral as most people wont even need to loan money if they've already got the sufficient amount in alts though there are lots of people doing this already so people would likely choose another user over you.

How could I take an account as collateral? Surely I would be shown as being a bit malicious selling off accounts, and surely they could just reset the password on the account?

Plenty of people buy/trade/sell accounts. Just look at the digital goods section. In fact I think forum accounts are the most popular form of collateral these days. To secure an account you just change all the details including the email address and there's not really any way they can get it back. They could go to the admins and try convince them it was hacked but with a little investigation they would see it wasn't. You can always change the signature/personal text to 'account currently held as collateral by Fishbones78 etc as well.

Okay, seems good. Thanks :)

Loaning is not a good option IMHO. default rates are pretty high and you could lose money, Furthermore the volume is very small to make a good profit

I dunno, some people do it for more than just the returns e.g. for trust feedback, however personally I wouldn't take the risk.

Providing that you do your homework on how to deal with those borrowing your coins, and identifying solid collateral and such then it could be worthwhile...

No.

Yes.

That's a very straightforward answer, people seem to have very different opinions on loaning. I think i'll try a couple of micro loans (but still request collateral) to test the water. If I make a loss, I have my clear answer  :P

Bitcoin loaning is nice idea but better be safe and ask for collateral, unless you trust the person.

If you know how to evaluate the "colaterals" and never give the loan without loan.
Then it's quite profitable.

i think you meant without collateral , right ?

Your ability to achieve a profit in the free market is determined by your skill and your intelligence, be in WoT, ask for collateral and most importantly build a name and make a steady profit, don't be lending on bitcointalk like a fool.

If you have to lend, start with only collateralized loans is my advice. Do not be greedy.
Otherwise, you definitely will get scammed to death.

worth it if you are good in selecting who will be approved
if i will go into lending its much better if theres always a collateral, that way I can at least regain my BTC in case of loan default

my ans is NO its so much work and hassal for little profit and if you got scamed you loss your complete month of profit without collateral no way dont even think about it with collateral its still so much work got scam and try to use that collateral is also work mostly you will get account as a collateral and after being scam you will find someone to buy that account to recover loss so much work

I think that even btcjam doesn't offer the needed warranties. The A+ guys doesn't meant that will be successful with the lending money. There are to many guys with A+ that have lost the money because the erroneous investments. So with him investment go away even the bitcoin lended . My suggestions is: Don't give bitcoin. Maybe with escrow yes but as a general rule might be: don't give bitcoin. Save those in your wallet.

Collateral is anything you can hold as value for the amount you've loaned...domain name is good but only as valuable as your ability to use it to recoup your money of the borrower doesn't repay.

You should check out www.prosper.com. It would be safest and most profitable to converts your btc to dollars and loan them through Prosper. You can lisn amounts as low as $25, choose who you loan to and get a decent return (4-10%.)

Check it out.

Not only this. But if you want to increase the amount of bitcoin you own save everyday some bucks (the bucks of the second and third coffe at the bar) and after a while buy bitcoin with those. You will be amazed how many bitcoin you will have after a year.

there always exists a chance of getting scammed in every trade that you make. the only thing that you can do is to reduce the risks as much as you can.

for example when you want to trade anything with bitcoin you can use a trusted escrow service, or when lending bitcoin you should ask for a valid collateral.

What would you use for collateral? I hope it's not usernames on Bitcointalk. These usernames are sold, and bought for scamming on a daily basis. The only reliable usernames are the primary username of a

member, with Hero and above ranking and not created with the intent to sell. {Check post history, for constructive and non-spam related content}

You are entering a very high risk scene and the probability of being scam exceeds the promise of a high return on your investment. Good luck, if you want to try it, because you will need it.  ???

If you use Escrow, make sure it's one with a good reputation and lots of positive feedback from many users... some of those might be shill accounts used to boost it's reputation. 

i don't quite understand this part. can you explain a little.
if by username you mean taking control of the account and not only knowing the username, i don't see the risk in that. because any account with any sort of rank has its own value and post history doesn't make any difference.
if you want to join any campaign you can post good quality for one week and then join.

the value depends on the rank and whether or not it has been banned, negative trust or things like that

I believe it's profitable, if I had only enough bitcoins to lend, I will run a loan service in this forum

Of course there's still a risk on lending and getting scammed but you can reduce the risk by asking a collateral on every loan or you can just lend to trusted users here.

Unfortunately there is already people that offers loans without collateral, some of them to increase their trust some others to try make some profit, that would make it really hard for you to get requests from people who actually have alt-coins to offer as a collateral, 95% of the loans requested are usually stupid loans, anyone who needs a loan < 0.10 btc will probably use it for gambling, increasing trust, some of them might actually need it but not too many.

This is true, but even with no collateral loans one can make a decent profit, because the interests are much grater on non collateral loans, than they are
on collateral ones, mostly because the risk is greater also.

You can evaluate the risk on the status of the account asking for loan; if the account can be
signed, and it has estimated worth of ~0.20 btc, it is unlikely that the loan taker will scam you after borrowing 0.05, simply because he will get negg repped and
destroy his account, which will make him a much more loss. But then again, some people still do it anyways, but it's beyond me why they do it.

cheers

well without colateral you will get scammed without anyone think twice,you can rent your bitcoins on poloniex with margin trades,means the money cant be moove from the exchange and will generate a fee,that is your profit,the good thing is that no one cant withdraw any ammount from it before pays the loan soo is like 99% safe this loan.

I think it can be worth it as long as you never tried to loan without a collateral. though giving a small loan to a trusted member that can prove their ownership of the said account can be worth it as well.

mostly trusted users dont need loan they already have enough funds they dont need loan mostly you will see newbies and jr member are asking for loan and if you giving then loan without colleteral you will get scamed and if they are giving their account as a colleteral even the loan amount i small their accout worth it but still after getting scamed it will be hard for you to sale jr member or member account because no one buy it, loaning is so much work

as i said before try poloniex margin trades works the same way as loans they ask for an colateral to protect money from their costumers and yes if you see some high rank asking for loan well it had been bought maybe,soo a scam attemption.

ask ManyProofs  ;D
this guy now have a strong fan base and he is known as a "pro lender"  ;D

seriously lending is a good part time business but one needs to be choosy as to who will get the loan and I strongly suggest to follow the no collateral, no loan rule

i thought that exchange don't ask for any collateral, they simply take your other deposit money if you can't repay their loan with margin trading, in fact i'm wondering what will happen if someone abuse this and make multiple account to scam the exchange through multiple leverage trading at x20

Bitcoin loaning is a legit and nice business as long as you know what you are doing. Like others said, "no collateral, no lend" rule will keep you safe mostly.

Lending or Financing is a good business and there's always a market for that regardless of what group there's always someone out there willing to finance or lend someone who needs. As long as the interest is not sky high people will ask you for help (loan).

In the future (if not already) people might just start selling accounts with A-C ratings on BTCJam and scamming people?

Anyone thought of this?

It's almost as collateral, because it requires that holds a coin in return allows you to get a loan, you can't draw, having to invest in other crypto or even with other offers of loan is very attractive so that has about 200 bitcoins in the loans every day.

i think this is already reality, because there are many scammers even among those with a+ rating, you can't trust btcjam at all, better to lend money here and use their account as a collateral, which is the best and faster collateral you can ever get

BTC loaning is still like home made ice cream. You can loan, but there is no quaranty that, you will receive it back.  ;)

Is there a step by step tutorial in how to do this correctly without screwing up? I have some BTC that I want to start growing and I don't know how before gambling in the altcoin market, loaning seems like the only way to go, but im scared to get scammed, specially if you can't even trust A+ guys in BTCJam.

For loaning, my main rule is just have decent collateral, at the moment anyway. Saying that, I've only had 1 loan request which I turned down, so I think it may be a slower process than I thought.

I've found lending out BTC on Bitfinex to be easy and apparently risk-free (as far as that's possible). Bitfinex provide "total return swaps" - basically the lender sets a rate, amount and duration (say: 0.0055%, 1 BTC, 2 days) and waits for a borrower to accept (or the lender can set a rate that a borrower has already demanded).

Bitfinex cover the counterparty risk - the borrower is borrowing on margin, and Bitfinex will do a margin call if the borrower's position approaches the point beyond which they could pay you back.

Obviously there's still exchange risk - Bitfinex currently seem pretty solid, but the usual rules apply: spread your risk, keep on top of information about exchanges you're dealing with, etc.

I don't know what rates to expect elsewhere (I suspect rates probably are better elsewhere) but the 0.0055% rate seems to be the long-term trend. It's still better than the 0% rate I was getting before I moved (some of) my coins to Bitfinex! (And I've been luck so far and always managed to get better than 0.0055%).

(No connection with Bitfinex except as a satisfied customer).

That's why you should follow the thumb rule no collateral and no loan. If you follow this method yes it is surely profitable and you can make some decent profit instead investing in some scam programs.

Yes one shouldn't loan any amount without any proper collateral to make a profit from lending business. It is really profitable business if you manage well.

Yeah, that's the catch -- does the interest rate on BTC swaps justify the exchange risk?

To me, having money on the exchange is for trading, because the potential returns are much, much higher. If BTC swaps could compete with USD swaps, return-wise, I would consider lending on BFX.

It's profitable if you know what you're doing and avoid giving out risky loans without collateral.
Be sure to read the sticky posts in the lending section before you start giving out loans to other members.

bitcoin loaning???thats kinda hard now..theres a lot of scammers

That's not a valid reason. Given that logic swimming is dangerous, there are a lot of sharks.
You need to know how to protect yourself.

its worth it if you know how to spot a scammer or those who plan not to pay.
it would be wise to always use an escrow