Bitcoin Forum

I am an active investor at BTCJAM.com since a year or so and recently I found that there are no new listings on their website and it's been more than a month and the situation is same.

There was a large volume of loan defaulters on this site and I guess that they are purifying the system and will introduce something new after the expiry date of currently active loans.

What do you think?

PS : 26th May 2017

BTCJam is closing their business and we can withdraw our funds till July 1, 2018.

If they did because of the loan defaulters then they finally did something good. I personally find this great because there is absolutely no way to assure that someone is not going to default a loan , BTCJam and other platforms only require ID verification , proof of income and online accounts which can easily be faked.
If someone want to lend , I suggest working at Bitcointalk as chances that you get scammed are much lower who you are lending to and you ask for a collateral In case things goes wrong.

It is really hard situation for any p2p lending service.

If you try to regulate it and ask for full info, detailed ID and more documents to verify your customers, they will go away.

But if you will keep current level of control, scammers will take advantage of the system. BTCJam is doomed anyway.

All of the lending service are about to die or already lost their charm. As an investor nobody likes to invest in some risky loan request. Even if they ask for id verification in many cases borrower will use fake id to verify their account so when they run away with the loan money there is no way to get it back.

And if the defaulter gives his real identity, what happens? Nothing!

I joined BTCjam last year and there were only 11 listings at that time.
Scammers are a problem,but i think that maybe nobody wants to request loans because of the bitcoin price increase.If somebody gets a 1btc loan and the bitcoins price goes from $1040 to $1500 after one week,he can`t pay his debt.

@ Others,
Let's hope for the good, yes bitcointalk has amazing culture to ask for a collateral before filing the loan and I wish these sites should do something too.


I don't think that there is any problem of this kind because Btcjam has system that ties the loan amount to USD and other fiat currencies so at the end of the loan tenure, the borrower pays the amount which is liable to him in fiat (irrespective of bitcoin price).

Yeah..I wanted invest some bitcoins on BTCJam but nobody needs it anymore  :'(

Does it means if btcjam will be die in the future? No one is interesting for using it again. Because the bitcointalk is much better rather than btcjam in my mind.

But I suggest don't invest in these kinds of sites because people can easily create fake id's can default your loans. That's why these kind of sites are not popular anymore. You should lend money only if you can hold a collateral in your hand or any trusted escrows otherwise don't ever lend your money.

BTCJam was being used by scammers. If you want to lend, do it on Poloniex, at least they stand between you and the borrower.

sorry for your loss.

It seems that now I need to find some alternative option where I can automate the lending process. Bitcointalk is a good option but you have to do devote much time for it (of course it is better than losing money with someone else but still, as of now I am working on some priority projects).

Update: I am getting some due repayments (once is 3 to 4 days) but still there is no open listing yet.

This project (Teambrella) seemed promising a few weeks ago and they're a bit different than BTCJam, Bitbond, Bitlendingclub, Btcpop, Poloniex and the others:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1398547.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1398547.0)

But I still think collateral is a must when lending cryptocurrencies...

BTW would it be nice if we could use a decentralized platform/exchange like Bitsquare (now called bisq) in order to run some kind of p2p decentralized and collateralized lending.

I long for that...

On Btcpop you can invest in collateral loans, you can invest in shares, you can invest in your Instant account where your principal is not risked.
We've a very strict verification system using anti fraud services and forensic software to check documents.
Many require Address+ Verification (Sending Letter with a code to the user) before they can submit any other documents.
We've an active community who find scammers very quickly and lot get stopped before getting any loan funded.

Since I own btcpop the default rate decreased a lot and loans are overal in profit.

We continue to work on anti fraud tools.
I'm investor myself and my own ROI improved a lot also and many investors improved their ROI.

Too many scammers on BitJam, and if they raised he security checks any higher, it would be too intrusive and troublesome. As Omega Starscream has said, Bitcoinyalk is the best, with a strict trust system and a very cautious community.

loaning on BTCjam is same as throwing your bitcoins away in most cases
a year ago I read an article about BTCjam and the default rate on loans was over 33%
means that 1/3 of all of the loans were not paid
think twice before you loan money at btcjam

I thought this entire concept of lending without collateral has been abolished so far. People CHEAT! If you do not introduce some rules, no luck there, you ll just end up being scammed. I m glad to hear BTC jam might be doing something about it.

As I was suspecting, I was not investing any more in BTCjam's listing as I was suspecting something unusual and yesterday I have withdrawn my remaining funds recovered so far and today I got a mail from BTCjam that they are closing the business.

If you have any funds lying with them then you can withdraw it until July 1, 2018.


I am on a breakeven point at this moment, the interest earned is almost equal to the bad debts so it was an average experience for me, still appreciate the efforts of BTCjam.

But there are still many people who are in loss due to bad debt. Personally I think BtcJam is complete failure and they may come up with new improved and secure lending platform. Almost all P2P lending platforms are struggling to give secure lending service and nobody have found a proper way to do it.

While dealing with cryptocurrencies, loans without collateral are unsustainable. (Unfortunately) other companies will follow BTCJam's example (sooner or later)...

Yes, it was a failed experiment and I ended up at break even position just because I have been investor since years and decided to stop investing further when I realized the percentage of bad debts. I am not feeling guilty or something I understand that the model was having some issues and it was not a scam. 


Yes we might see imitations but you simply can't do anything about it.

Yes, Most people just take the loan with the intention of not returning it back and that is real cause of failure of such systems. There is no proper way to collect the collateral from the loan takers. I think loans at bitcointalk forum are much more secure due to strict policies being enforced here and people get their account compromised if they dont return on time.

That's why the lending section of bitcointalk works best and I see no one gives you a loan without collateral unless you have very good reputation and track record. The recovery option on Btcjam was through the legal arbitrary system but to be honest, it's very complicated to sue the loan defaulters around the world and that too for each $5, $10 worth of loan so at the end it was a pure waste of time imo.

I'd say it's almost impossible, that's why I insist that BTCJam's (and competitors') business model is unsustainable... :-\

The rule of gold is: "No Collateral, No Money"!

These sites want to verify people identity based on the documents, but there are so many fake documents are available, and it is quite hard to find out what is correct or not. That's why when people take bigger loans easily they will disappear, and these sites will have a hard time to find a person. Finally, the lender will lose the money. So as you said this kind of sites will success if they allow lenders to own a collateral and they just some % of transaction money then it will success otherwise no.

Agree but I don't think BTCjam is in a position to recover the bad debts and transforming their system as they already have decided to shut down their business. They used to provide the details of loan defaulters to the lenders but as we all know, the fake documents are worth nothing and since it is international portal, it is not economical to take legal action against everyone.

Probably some game theory involved, but they could have tried using BTC as collateral, as in, you can't get a loan for more than the amount you timelock or multisig; if the loan isn't paid, the collateral goes to the lender.