Bitcoin Forum

My company - Funtrench Limited - is setting up an exchange for Bitcoin and 3 alt-coins in Kenya. It's pretty difficult to obtain Bitcoin (even with money) from East Africa because most banks don't have linkage with the major online money services that are acceptable on most exchanges. Virwox used to be an option, but their payment gateway provider (Skrill) is blocking transactions and actually returning funds to credit cards. Of course to keep Bitcoin accessible to every part of the world (especially in places where mobile money is prevalent) we think the solution is a homegrown exchange that accepts local currency and provides ordinary guys with the opportunities to obtain, use and even invest in Bitcoin. We've linked up with some offshore guys to do bulk purchases/sale of Bitcoin and so we should be able to achieve Gox-like popularity within the local context.

We're sourcing investment on bitbond.net where investors would have a chance to earn interest and help out with this project. Our listing is at https://www.bitbond.net/buyer/listings (https://www.bitbond.net/buyer/listings) with the ID S3AN134R8. We are confident of our market research and capacity to pull this off relatively quickly with the intention of ensuring all businesses that accept mobile money payments (like 80% of businesses in Kenya) can also accept Bitcoin. It's time Bitcoin became a currency, not just an asset.

Anyone with interest in providing us with additional venture capital (in Bitcoins) can contact me.

Sounds interesting.

Do you have specifics about location of the exchanges? More details please.

The exchange will be based in Nairobi where my company is located and will initially accept deposits in Kenya shillings. Deposits will be made via M-Pesa, a mobile money system which is commonly used in Kenya. To get around the issue of obtaining Bitcoin, after the initial investment we intend to obtain Bitcoin by working with European contacts to buy in cash. Our plan will build on a reliably running exchange to expand into money transfer via Bitcoin.

Just a little time to go before our time on Bitbond is up. Anyone willing to invest in the project earns interest and is guaranteed payment. We requested for 9 BTC, and throughout the loan period we will update investors on progress and revenue. We were featured on the bitbond.net blog at https://blog.bitbond.net/2013/11/interview-feature-borrower-funtrench/ (https://blog.bitbond.net/2013/11/interview-feature-borrower-funtrench/) and I assure you we are a legitimate business in Kenya.

Invest now!

How do you guarantee payment of the loan?  Your word alone is not sufficient.

Guarantee - a formal assurance (typically in writing) that certain conditions will be fulfilled.

that has no meaning in a debt insturment.  debtors are requirement to make payments, if a debtor doesn't then they have already broken the contract.

It is like saying "trust me, because you can trust me". 

Unless you have a separate guarantor (i.e you personally are willing to put personal credit and assets on the line) it is a stupid statement to make.  If anything it makes the loan more suspect.

I did not say it has any meaning as a debt instrument. I simply pointed out what the word means as I have used it. We're running an exchange, we already have clients, we have little or no competition, and we're requesting a loan through a provider who has done due diligence and established our identity - including verifying our income. Just like any bank or credit institution would grant a loan after verifying income and identity. Regardless of what happens to our exchange, we can pay based on income that has been verified by bitbond.net.

While I understand the relative paranoia that permeates the Bitcoin community, our understanding is that Bitcoin can work very well in certain scenarios as a payment method, and the exchange is simply part of that long-term plan. On our end we see it as a way of growing the Bitcoin economy, and making it useful as more than a commodity. Paranoia guards against loss of Bitcoin, but it certainly doesn't move the community away from being a small elitist 1st world thing. I suppose you are welcome to suspect the loan, but I can assure you that we will still get Bitcoin into East Africa.

Thats all fine and good hopefully you can see that the same person borrowing the loan "guaranteeing" it is utterly pointless and comes across as scamish.

I mean what would you say "give me this loan and I will never repay you".  All loans are a promise to repay.  You can't guarantee repayment because even if you have the intent to repay you may be unable to do so.  Unless you have a co-signer, guarantor, or are putting up collateral putting "guarantee" on your loan comes across as amateurish (and that is being nice, the first thought is scam artist).

Worthy project but without collateral you have your work cut out

The community is not paranoid so much as it is many times bitten, now shy...

Where are you based out of? Do you have boots on the ground in Kenya?

Dude, I live in Nairobi. Born and raised. I make software and deploy for Kenyan clients in Kenya.  :)

The new site is coming up here http://funtrench.com/ (http://funtrench.com/)