Bitcoin Forum

Something different.  I have a credit card loan that I am paying off and would be interested if it can be done through the bitcoin community.

I would take the loan and pay down the credit card. Each month I would pay 1/10 of the USD principle plus 1% interest payable in BTC at the rate at the time the payment is due.

Not sure if the community is ready for this yet, but if it was, all of the interest that is going to the bank would stay in the community and I would have a better rate.

Are you asking for $500 or $3000 or just anything in between?

Anything in between.  Up to $3000 if multiple people.

You're seriously only paying 6% on credit card debt?

No, I am paying more.  I will need to encure fees though to do the transaction such as possibly buying coins pay back loan.

What's the benefit of this arrangement?  Getting more bitcoins in circulation?

Me saving money.  My interest going into the community instead of to a big bank.

Boy I hate giving this money to Bank of America.  :(

id be happy to do it regularly when a bit mroe flush but the issue again is what kinda security do people have =/ can we gte your addres and security on your mining quipment or something? xD

Again, cant do right now, maybe in a years time id be up for this in return for miners as security hehe

Half a point ain't much to offer someone for tying their money up for almost a year. It's barely above a national bank free savings account. That coupled with the risk and well...

Then why did you borrow it from them in the first place?

Considering the risks involved, I'll loan you the money but my rate won't be +0.5%. I'll consider +10%.

They were giving lines of credit when others were not!

The rate is .5% a month.  Why would I pay loan shark rates when I already have the loan?  I want to pay off the loan and pay less, not more!

  Yeah, there is no way I would do this without a fairly invasive financial audit and collateral which I could confidently sell for a substantial fraction of the loan amount.  I don't have BoA's collection capabilities and we are headed into hard times which will make default very tempting for a lot of people.  (Not saying I have any specific reason to suspect the OP is a substantial default risk, just that I am inexperienced and see this as a dangerous time to be a creditor.)

6% a year is many times the national savings bank rate. 

I am not sure what you are saying.  You are quoting half a point then saying a year.  It is half a point a month. 

Aha...poor reading comprehension...that's me.

If you don't have success, try a prosper loan.  It's pretty easy to get a loan funded there, especially for debt consolidation.  I got a loan for $5k to buy a car that I wanted to fix and resell, got 11.5% interest rate (which wasn't too great, but was far better than my interest rates on the scammy credit cards I had), and it really worked well.  The loan was fully funded by peers in just 24 hours, and I had the money in the bank in 7 days.

They offer down to 6.5% interest now (I think the minimum was 9.5% or so when I got my loan), so the service is definitely maturing and getting stronger.  If you have good credit, you should be able to get close to that rate.  And the interest goes mostly to peer investors, not banks.

EDIT:  This wasn't the purpose of my post, but I just looked to see if they had a referral program, and they do.  So if you DO want to go the prosper route, let me know so I can get you a referral link.  It's $100 bonus for referring people, and I'd be willing to give you half of it if/when you sign up.

I may try that next month.  I wanted the money to stay in this community but I also want to get it done too. 

Sure, no problem.

You could put the loan on Propser and then link us to it here.  Those of us that invest on Propser could buy it up.

I tried that last week. They quoted 18% which is higher then I am paying now.  I guess my 15.x rate from B of A is not so bad.  I could pay more interest on a BTC loan, but not much more.  If I had to buy the coins to pay the loan, I would be paying fees to the exchange which unfortunately makes this less of a deal.

Yikes!

I had a 29.99% interest CC that I paid off after selling the car I bought to resell with my prosper loan.  A lot better to pay 11% interest than 29%.  But the 29% company was seriously a scam...

I am happy to throw some BTC into this venture with others.

Being in debt sucks!

I have 0% on balance transfers for 12 months, with a 3% upfront fee.  Due to a minimum fee, the loan needs to be at least $350 to make this economical.  I am willing to put up $150 towards that if we can find a few others to come up with the other $200.  The other lenders would send me bitcoins and I would do a balance transfer from your card to mine.  The 3% fee will be added to the principal and the monthly interest will be 0.5%.  Assuming exactly $350 is raised, the payments come out as follows (we can round to the nearest penny):

31.844166666666666
31.693958333333327
31.54374999999999
31.393541666666653
31.24333333333331
31.09312499999998
30.94291666666664
30.7927083333333
30.642499999999963
30.492291666666617
30.34208333333328
30.191874999999936
total: 372.21624999999966 [1]

So, Littleshop pay 3% up front + 6% annually; bitcoin investors make 6% and the banks only get 3%.

If you would like to help me help Littleshop, please pm me how much you are willing to commit, or reply below.  Each payment will be divided proportionally by contributed capital (my contribution will include the 3% fee, so your share will be "your contribution"/("total loan" + "balance transfer fee"), and my share will be (150 + "balance transfer fee")/("total loan" + "balance transfer fee")).

Of course, this is all assuming Littleshop agrees to these terms.

begin_edit
Of course, payments will be converted to bitcoins.
end_edit

[1] Payments calculated as follows:

def payments(n)
  amount = 350
  # balance transfer fee                                                        
  p = amount * 1.03
  r = 0.005
  months = 12

  total_payment = 0
  Range.new(1,n).each do |i|
    # payment is remaining principal / months remaining                          
    # plus monthly interest                                                      
    payment = p/(months-i+1)+p*r
    puts payment
    # new principal is old principal plus interest minus payment                
    p = p*(1+r) - payment
    total_payment += payment
  end

  puts "total: #{total_payment}"
end

payments(12)

No one else has come forward and $150 is not worth it for either of us, but offer is still open. 

  I am not sure how big their reserve is for 0% interest loans but you could try the IBB. your likeliness to payback is much better than some fo their previous debtees.  You could pay back the 1/10th per month and add in the .5% or whatever as gratuity. Worth checking into anyhows.


   Cheers

OP stated 0.5% per month. That's over 6% per yr, if u compound your return.

I have updated terms.  I am selling enough (not all) of my BTC at the exchanges and paying fees there.  If I sent BTC to repay the loan I would be avoiding fees, so hence I can pay a higher rate.