Bitcoin Forum

would someone give me a loan of 1000$ in bitcoin for 1 month (1%) if i could give a collateral of 4 btc to an escrow during that month?
just the question if someone would give me this loan

Posh in the Lending section, not the Beginners & Help. If you provide collateral, then yup, I'm sure someone would be willing to do it

So you would put 4 btc in collateral for 3 btc ??? What..

+ ??? I don't get it either. You send 4BTC then the lender sends you... 3?

I'd like to know who the escrow would be lol.

The escrow would pretty much be getting an easy 1% or something in fees.

Is he asking for a USD pegged loan?

According to what's written, it seems that he wants a loan in the amount of $1000 denominated in BTC, in exchange for 4 BTC held in escrow as collateral, and that he wants to repay $1,010 denominated in BTC.  So, everyone is confused because he wants to provide more BTC as collateral than the amount of BTC he is looking for.

This is why I joked that I'd like to know who the escrow would be, because the only way that this deal would make sense is if he is a scammer just waiting to tell us all about some 'trusted' escrow he found.

Hopefully he just typed his request incorrectly and that English isn't his native language  :D

Or it could be a cheap way of getting leverage for a month on a hoped for increase in the Bitcoin price, at a cost of $10.
Ignore the collateral for the minute, that's just security to be returned by the escrow on repayment of $1000 plus 1% i.e. $1010.
Say, for the sake of easy calculation, Bitcoin at the time of the loan is trading at $333.3, he gets 3 BTC = $1000.
IF the price goes up to say $505 during the month, then he pays back $1010, now only 2BTC, making a 1BTC profit on the loan (as well as the collateral).  

You can try here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=701592.0

that's exactly what i mean
i didn't mean to ask for a loan too, just if it would be reasonable someone would do that?
but it is not for buying bitcoin
but indeed, i would pay back 1010$ in bitcoin
if bitcoin is 10100$ in a month i would pay back 0.1 bitcoin, if it's worth 101$ i would give back 10 btc per btc lended. I'll immediately transfer those btc back to fiat so even when the price would go down like hell I'll still be able to pay back. It's just lending out fiat with an intrest rate of 1% a month (of 12.68% a year).
I could also do it with lower amounts maybe but the problem is how to use the collateral then. Is there a way to be 100% sure I'll get my sended btc back when i pay back the loan?
I'm really new in all of this and don't know how everything works

he's loaning out btc, i'm not interested in that :) want usd (paid in whatever method but could be with bitcoin)

Just trying.. :) but you can look for something what you need in this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0

I think it will take more then 1 percent loan.  This is a very attractive loan as the borrower but less so for person loaning. 

why? 12.6% a year for your fiat, I don't know what you get on your bank account but I guess it's a bit less and even people put money on there...

Certainly a bank pays much less interest on deposits, but then again the bank is a MUCH lower risk.  Deposits at the bank here in the U.S. are regulated and insured by the F.D.I.C.

Are you running a regulated business? If I loan you money, will that loan be guaranteed by an extremely reliable insurance corporation?

If not, then the lender is taking a MUCH higher risk, and therefore should be adequately compensated for that additional risk.  If getting a bank loan was so easy for you, then you already would have gotten the loan there and would not be here looking for someone willing to take a chance on you.

So you don't want to sell your bitcoin for USD and buy bitcoin back later, because you don't want the risk of bitcoin price going up in the next month, right?

What about selling ~2.7 btc for $1000 and buy it back later, and entering a leveraged long position at the same time to hedge the risk?

Pretty much sums it up.  If you have a bank account you can get a fiat for cheaper on loan.   

There is a entire lending board on here, if you look because of risk the monthly fee is normally higher then one percent.

There no risk if I give more collateral, right?

That would maybe cost me more and give me risk by putting my btc on an exchange

Regarding the cost, I don't think 1% monthly rate is good enough as the lender would have a loss (in terms of bitcoin) as long as bitcoin price goes up just 1% in the next month. I have no idea what is the "fair" rate should be though.

Regarding to risk, you are absolutely right.

yes but if he buys bitcoin with his fiat and sells them when he get them back he will have a profit in USD for sure. Not everyone is so bullish on bitcoin...

If you actually need $1000 for a month for a specific fiat purpose, why not just ask to borrow $1000 in fiat using your bitcoin as collateral, and pay back $1000 plus agreed interest?
At current prices, your security is c.150% of the loan, only becoming an issue for the lender if Bitcoin drops below $250. I don't think you will get 1% per month but I don't see why a lender wouldn't take that loan on in principle.


That's what an escrow is for, you either trust them or you don't.


Looking at your post history, you aren't that new.
Forgive me for being cynical, but I think you are hoping to speculate on a rise in the BTC price and want to get cheap leverage by trying to set up a sort of P2P bet disguised as a loan arrangement.
Not that there's anything scammy about that, a bearish lender might be happy to do it, but would want more than $10, otherwise they could just sell their own coin on an exchange, buy it back in a month and save all the hassle.


No, but I think you are  ;)  Good luck.

I guess ppl bearish in bitcoin don't have any bitcoins anymore so they can't sell them :p and yes, I think btc will go up, but don't need the money to buy it but for something else. But don't want to sell my btc but giving them as collateral is no problem :)

So, at the risk of repeating myself, just borrow and repay in $ not BTC.

Idk about everyone else but 1% sounds like a horrible deal for a whole month....

ok but transferring btc is free, wire transfers or other payment methods not... And 12.6% without risk is horrible?

I guess it's not that bad, but I just see the 1% as $10... You can make a lot more than that by doing smaller loans to a few people.

I can also borrow more but above 5k I'll have problems providing collateral

if you are rich enough you can do both :)

I'm suprised no  one has posted yet.  For loans post over in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0 (loan forum) to get more attention.   You also need to know if short or long term.

I agree you sound like a good person to loan. But I think your 1 percent will not happen on here but guess we will see.   BTC loans just are not a low cost fiat loan. 

That was my first post :P I didn't hyperlink it though. I think the OP was asking hypothetically, not actually though

He did follow the link and asked marcotheminer rather than start his own thread, and got turned down
"Interest is much too low and it isn't worth it"

I know someone who might entertain the idea of lending to him, but not with the exposure to the Bitcoin price that comes with doing it the way he wants to, and at a lot more than 1% per month. And with an immediate termination and liquidation of collateral BTC should the price drop below 105% security, especially now he's talking about up to a year's term loan...

Interesting, so it was a serious question; I might be willing to make a loan, if he were to put up 4 BTC as collateral.

Not trying to tell you your business, but you do understand that's it not so much a loan, more you selling him BTC at today's price and then buying it back at whatever rate prevails at the end of the month, and getting $10 for that risk?

I wouldn't be buying it back though; he's essentially asking for $1000 USD, and he'll pay me back at the end. Maybe I'm too tired and I'm misunderstanding the question though.

Ok, read this when you've had a sleep  ;)

Let's say you do the deal as originally specified.
He wants $1000, paid in Bitcoin. At $375, that's 2.6666 BTC you send him. In exchange, you get an IOU for $1010 and the escrow holds the collateral until the end of the loan term, then releases it back to him on receipt of the agreed $1010.
You take the $1010, but wait, the rate has gone up to $400 in the meantime.
The $1010 now only buys you 2.525 BTC to replace the 2.6666 that you originally gave him, so you lose 0.1416 BTC on the deal. (Of course, if  Bitcoin/USD goes down, you make a commensurate profit.)
Without a loan clause authorizing the escrow to deduct any change in the exchange rate from the collateral, it's not a loan, it's a private bet between the two of you on the future price of Bitcoin.

Yes, you don't have to see it that way. See it like you use your dollars from your bank account. You buy btc with them (you can also pay me in other ways, but most of them are more expensive), lend them out and sell them again when you get them back. Then you have an intrest rate of 12% instead of the 1 (I even think I don't get that here) % on your bank account.
I'm really honest and really willing to pay back. I understand that in the long term if bitcoin crashes the collateral would not be enough (and technically I could run away) but I'm willing to adjust the amount I have in collateral. Make it lower when bitcoin price goes up, make it higher when bitcoin price drops and keeping the collateral at 120% all the time. (monthly, weekly, or even daily if you prefer but probably escrows will not agree with this). You don't have to do this but 12.68% a year without any risk instead of a 1% on your bank (maybe even with a bigger risk), don't say this is a bad investment, maybe you don't do it because you are bullish on bitcoin but for some people this could be interesting (for people who don't care about the bitcoin price and just want a good safe investment with their dollars), but till now I didn't find anyone yet.


I am lending US dollars, no bitcoins, you don't have to forget that. If you don't have dollars and don't want to sell anything for dollars this is indeed not a good investment.

Interesting :D
But we need a really trustworthy escrow. I definetely don't trust you to just give 4 BTC and probably the opposite counts too  :)
and it doesnt have to be about 1000$, other amounts are possible too but it sounds a good amount to me to start with.

Can someone recommend us an escrow? (I never used an escrow before too)

I'm also thinking about opening a real virtual bank. Where people can deposit and withdraw their $ all the time (maybe against a small fee of 0.1%) and get 1% a month and I having all my bitcoins at an escrow who confirms every day the bitcoins he has in collateral are worth more than the deposits. But maybe this is to difficult and just a few people lending me 1000$ would be easier than 100 people lending me a bit.

I'm generally comfortable using any of the top 8 escrow providers on this list:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276897.0

Try to ask it in the Lending Section. But, if you've 4 btc that you can give to an escrow, why do you want 1 btc in lending? So strange this situation. I consider that the best way is to use escrow for this type of lending.

Let's use you?  :D Only had good experience with you and you are the highest free escrow on the list

I also have some altcoins which I could give as collateral but I think it's best to start with the btc since this once is the most stable in compare to the US $

If both parties are willing to trust me with the bitcoins, I'd be happy to hold escrow for you.  Just let me know who the other party is, exactly how many bitcoins you both agree I'll be holding, and what the conditions of escrow release will be.  Then I'll write up an escrow agreement and send it to both of you.

Important notes:

There are scammers that will create a fake escrow agreement and put their own bitcoin address in there.  Then they will send the agreement and claim that I asked them to forward a copy to you.  It is best to verify the signature (I always digitally sign all my escrow agreements), but if you don't know how to do that then ONLY accept an agreement that you receive directly from me.

There are scammers that will create a fake bitcointalk user ID that looks very similar to mine.  Then they will send an escrow agreement to both parties hoping that neither of you will notice the very slight variation in username.  Be very careful and make absolutely certain that messages you receive are actually from the person you think they are from.  Check the posting history, trust feedback, username, start date, and if possible digital signature of the person you are communicating with.

so is this a loan in BTC to be repaid in BTC?

Hi AnonBitCoiner,
I saw you were interested in providing a loan to me.
If you are still interested let me know.
Keep in mind the loan is in $. So whatever what bitcoin does, you get back the $ + interest.
Just like a bank gives you intrest to on your $ (but much lower)
I don't care about the amount of the loan but I would like to keep it under 1500$ to start with and at least 100$.


You send bitcoins straight to me (worth X $) (after an escrow confirmed I sended bitcoins to him (worth 120% of the value)) so if I sended 6 btc you send me 5. At the end (you can choose the amount of time, 1 month, 2 month, 3 months) I'll pay you back bitcoins worth X + intrest.

OR

you provide collateral and me (20% of yours) to the escrow, I sell my bitcoins and at the end the escrow pays back the amount of bitcoins worth your original loan value + intrest and the reamining part to me and I buy back my bitcoins (sorry if it is confusing but it's exactly the same in the end)


Intrest is accumulated : (1.01)^(amount of months provided)

I think we can also say anyone can cancel this agreement at any time for a cost of 0.5%. So if you would need your money back and lended out for 3 months but after 2 months you really need it back for some urgent reason we can stop the agreement, I send you X +1% (1.5-0.5%) and the escrow releases the full amount back to me.

If in any case the bitcoin price would drop more than 20% I'll provide extra collateral to the escrow. In case I can't the agreement will be ended, I'll pay back the loan and the escrow will send the btc back to me. So no risk at all for you.

I suggest we use the escrow DannyHamilton.
Kind regards,
Leen

It is a loan in $ but payments are done in bitcoins
so you give me 1000$ in bitcoin and at the end I give you back 1000 + intrest $ back in bitcoin.
The escrow will keep more than the value of the loan at all time so there'll not be any risk for any of the parties.

I see.  Sounds like a good opportunity for someone to short sell.

It's not really shorting on bitcoin
It's shorting the bitcoins you own, so actually selling them but if you buy them back now with dollars you are just lending out dollars.

So, let me get this double clear.

In your original post you asked:

The only reason you mentioned bitcoin is because it is a cheap way of transferring $1000 to you?
It doesn't matter if the $1000 are wired to you, sent as bitcoin or delivered by helicopter, just so long as you don't pay for the cost of the transfer?
You will deposit 4 btc with escrow, returnable to you when you repay the $1000 plus interest?
If bitcoin declines in value during the course of the loan, you will keep the escrow amount topped up to a minimum of 120% i.e. $1200 equivalent?
Apart from the collateral being bitcoin, this is a dollar transaction, bitcoin only mentioned by you because it's a cheap method of transfer?

If the answer to those questions is yes, then we would be interested in lending you $1000 or more, but would want more than 1% per month.
It's late here now, unless you make other arrangements in the meantime, maybe we could continue this conversation tomorrow?

Well, sort of yes... the person that takes this loan would be in effect spectulating on Bitcoin price dropping relative to dollars
in the next month.

It's late here too :) the question is yes to all those answers but I can't give you more than 1% a month, this is high concerning the fact you are free of risk.

yes, but if you keep your dollars at the bank you do the same
if a US citizen keeps dollars in his bank account, he's speculating the gold price, Romanian stocks, corn, oil, the bitcoin, the Euro, the Korean won or whatever will go down in compare to the dollar. This is exactly the same but I don't call it shorting bitcoin... You just have to get rid of the idea of bitcoin at all. It's only a matter of payment in this case, nothing more, nothing less... I think I tried my best enough to explain this to you. This is just a dollar loan, if you send me the bticoins you own now and the bitcoin price rises you get less than when you just kept your bitcoins, but when you buy bitcoins with dollars right now and lend them to me, whatever the bitcoin price does you'll get more than if you just kept your usd in your wallet or in your bank account. That's all what it's about. Please you are a Sr. member, you should be able to understand this...

it is what it is. a loan of bitcoins, to be repaid in bitcoins , but demoninated in dollars.

I'd be willing to escrow it; I've never done any of these kind of transactions before, so forgive me if I ask some questions. It says the loan is in $; but looking at the other posts, I'm still somewhat confused (sleep deprivation doesn't sit well with me); would I be giving the loan in BTC or USD? I can see that DannyHamilton is trustworthy, and he sent me a PM too regarding the loan, so I'd be willing to use his escrow service if we go through with it.

My not-so TL;DR take on this: Loan is in USD. (BTC/wire transfer etc is just the way to transfer the $1000, doesn't matter which one here) Collateral is 120% of the $1000's current USD value. (to be tweaked depending on the exchange rate fluctuations)  I'd say that this is a fairly common collateralized loaning arrangement, where the loaner has a slight risk of BTC tanking sharply at a short amount of time, but it would generally work out fine. As for the 1% per month, the percentage is quite low given the circumstances (escrow fee factored?) , but that's obviously up to the free market to decide.  I've done a few loans with this kind of arrangement (collaterized with shares/BTC/ even once a physical Casascius BTC), and I'd say that the risks for all parties are pretty low. 

The loan is in dollars
so if u want to be sure of your profit, buy btc with your dollars now, send them to me (with escrow) and i sell them. btc is just a way of transferring, u get back the usd + intrest (but paid in bitcoin)

whats the latest offer for how much interest you're paying?

1% a month, nothing more, nothing less, will never offer more
from 1 till 6 months
cancelling can be done all the time for 0.5% (then I pay back the loan + intrest so far within 24 hours)

read the full topic and it will be clear

I can do this (if the loan is still needed - this is unclear) however you would need to raise the amount of interest you would be paying and agree to a clause that the amount you will repay (in terms of bitcoin) will not be below a certain amount (TBD).

You can either post here or PM me to negotiate details, and then we can arrange escrow to be setup.

still needed indeed, but can't pay more than 1% (so people, don't ask anymore, told this more than enough), and no, i'm not interested in betting on the btc price (I don't care wath it is), i'm not paying anything if it goes up. I agree paying more to the escrow if bitcoin goes down for your safety. But you cancel at any time if you find the bitcoin price is going up too much you just ask to get repaid...
But i suggest just buying new bitcoins with $ and lending those out (then i sell them), then you are sure of your profit.

12% interest is much lower then the interest rate you will generally see on these forums, and is really not enough for someone who does not wish to sell their bitcoin and risk that the price will increase in the future. The rates on bitfinex are roughly double of what you are offering (although the risks involved with lending on bitfinex are different) which should be a starting point to base any negotiations on.

You also mentioned that the lender can cancel the loan at time time to protect themselves if the price has gone up too much. Would you be willing to allow the lender to cancel if the price has gone down? This would result in the escrow releasing more funds (in terms of btc) then were lent.

For the first thing you give an answer yourself, there is a risk involved there and you can't cancel the loan at all times. Secondly you have to see it as lending out dollars, neither me, neither the lender should think about the bitcoin price, it's irrelevant for this loan. And yes, I would allow to cancel at all time. Like I said, I don't care about the bitcoin price, I just buy them to transfer the loan back at the end.

I agree 12% interest is much lower then the interest rate you will generally see on these forums, but on these forums you are talking about you see a risk for the lender which is not here. Even a lot of loans are without collateral :s. It's not a bad loan for people just wanting to have a good intrest rate on their fiat currency. If a bullish bitcoin-guy like you is not interested in this loan, fine, but for some people it could be interesting.

There is the risk that the escrow service makes some kind of mistake and ends up not providing the lender the bitcoin they are owed in the event of a default.

A lender on bitfinex can also lend their bitcoin at similar rates that they can lend their dollars and would not endure the risk of the price rising. The risks are different on bitfinex not higher.

I am interested in this loan, just not at the rate you are offering.

Same here, I would do the loan for 3% per month.  any less ain't worth my time and hassle. specifically I would want 2 months for 6%.  that would be my best offer.

Putting your money on an exchange with fake offices in HK, I don't say it's a bad thing but it is less secure than this loan but we're not going to discus this here, there is another thread about that. But they can run away with everything or will have to run away if bitcoin price fluctuates very hard in a few seconds, if no trades are available to cancel the swaps they have a problem. I have another opinion about the safety there. We can arrange another escrow if you wouldn't trust mine.
Anyways, I stay with 1%, it's not urgent and I have time :)
I'm sure I'll find someone

nobody interested?

No one's been willing to? :(

nope, sadly :(
it's not urgent, just need some money every day so im just selling my btc little by little even when i dont want  ???
if bitbet.us pays me out my bets there i'm willing to provide collateral up to 12000$ so could bring my limits of borrowing (currently around 2000$) up to +- 8000$ but i don't know if that would help but i stay with my 1% a month.

nobody interesed?