Drug addiction is something else that he can probably not control. It is not something as simple as to "stop using drugs" drug addiction is in itself a disease.

I think he most likely converted his loan to fiat and then bitcoin eventually went through the roof causing him to have sold the ~50 BTC for ~$800 and then was asked to repay $10,000 as a settlement offer because the price of bitcoin had gone up so much. I don't think those were very fair terms regardless of what he agreed to. I think that if squal were to invest that kind of money in a "bank" loan that had little chance of getting repaid then he would have probably lost that money in some other dubious investment/ponzi. I think that dank would have repaid his loan if he were given an amount to repay that was much closer to the amount he actually borrowed. I think that he probably tried to honor his agreement to repay the loan but was eventually told by someone that it was not fair for him.

Trust me, I am not defending scammers, as I have personally called out a number of scams, including some that no one else has noticed/discovered before I was able to connect the dots (which probably has hurt my business BTW). I think that any true scammer should rot in hell as they are stealing from others who have worked hard for their money.

The modlog says that he was auto banned, and reports in the above thread say that he has said he ban was permanent. I think that picture is very sad and I hope that is not how he is living.

Dank shows signs of bipolar disorder which is a very sad disorder and affects a very close friend of mine. It is something that will sometimes make you think something is a good decision when it is really not (this is especially true when it comes to things regarding money). It will also make you sometimes act in ways that people will often find strange. I don't think that he intended to troll (which is probably what he was banned for), I think he always has had good intentions on here. I think he was trying to follow the rules of the forum, which may be difficult for him to do.

I think it is sad when people on here ridicule him for how he acts and for the claims that he makes. I don't think his intentions were to scam anyone and that he wanted to make people be a good person when he made that thread. If squal were to have made a reasonable settlement offer to settle his debt (something well under 4 figures in US dollars worth of bitcoin) then I would personally pay his debt as he does not deserve to get harassed the way he did about a stupid mistake that he made years ago on here.

If it were up to me (it is not) I would personally reverse the ban, however I would seriously doubt that will happen.

This is fair. Although the 10 day option would still give the OP free advertising and would not guarantee payment, plus it would likely result in them receiving lesser payment overall.
This is not true. I would say that anyone who speaks out against the campaign manager would be looked at much more closely for potential disqualification from the campaign. Also similarly to how people will often not speak out against their "boss" participants will likely not want to speak out against the OP for fear of getting "fired" (although in most real world employment scenarios, employees are protected from this happening). The exact point of using an alt account is to voice an opinion that the person does not want associated with their "real" account.
I would say that based on this post (and other posts in this thread) that you are almost certainly an alt of the OP and of the website. This is one major reason why it is not good to select participants in any order other then first come first serve. By handpicking participants like this the OP is making it possible that there would be accounts controlled by the OP participating which could make it look like some/most participants were paid when they were really not.

Yes, I brought this up on the sig campaign thread. They have spent 20+ BTC on forum advertising so that gives them some level of credibility (but not enough for me to want to participate).

The purpose of escrow is to give credibility to the campaign that participants will be paid. I think it would make much more sense for payments to be made directly to an address of a participants choice. If they want to force participants to have an account then they can post their username (or deposit address) that btc-x can verify actually belongs to them (but I would frown on even this being a requirement).

EDIT: you also are going to want to change the title to include the fact that participants are not going to be paid (add scam somewhere). It is already established that they are a signature campaign.

be sure to update the qualifying posts section to reflect that marketplace posts do not count (as mentioned in the rules).

Also what is the point of escrow if you are making payments directly to a btc-x controlled address? What would stop them from receiving the signature payment funds and then not allowing someone to withdraw?

It would actually potentially make sense if the borrower were to some kind of "down payment"/"equity" so they would not be buying the shares with 100% borrowed money. Once the shares earn 3.3 BTC then they can be transferred to the borrower. This would prevent the lender from having to take  on all the risk associated with buying the shares and would result in a completed deal.

Obviously it would mean that the lender would need to be extremely trustworthy (I think that Tomatocage meets that criteria, but most of the other lenders on here are probably not). Another potential twist would be that the lender sends an escrow funds for the loan, the borrower sends an escrow funds for his "down payment", the escrow buys the shares, and once they have earned 3.3 BTC the escrow transfers the 3.3 to the lender and the shares to the borrower. 

Are you able to offer any collateral?

EDIT: I received the following PM from the OP (for the sake of transparency)

I don't visit the altcoin section very often so I really cannot speak to how quickly mprep is able to take action on the reports there, although he is the only moderator of the altcoin section and it tends to be very busy (and have a lot of drama).

If this is not your first malware wallet you have downloaded then I might suggest that you be more careful about what you download. Sending out malware can be a very effective way to cheat people out of a lot of money as it can usually easily steal any bitcoin (or any other alt coins) you have stored on your computer, hackers/attackers will often use malware as a result of this.

IDK how much bitcoin you have stored on your computer, but I am sure that you worked hard for however much you have there, and I don't think you would want it to be unfairly stolen from you

Well the topic is deleted now so that is good, however 5 minutes is very quick for a mod to respond to a report, in my experience it usually takes much longer for action to be taken on my reports in general, and in my experience malware reports take the longest for action to be taken (I assume that fewer moderators are able to handle these kinds of reports).

Also you should make the fact that the above dropbox link contains malware more prominent.

It is possible, it looks like one of his threads that he created was deleted shortly before he got banned, although it is not the thread that he was saying was containing malware in the OP. According to the Security log his password was changed ~12 hours prior to making this thread. There are no timestamps on the mod log so it is difficulty to say when exactly he was banned and when the thread was deleted. I personally think it is a little far fetched for someone to claim their account was hacked immediately prior to them spreading malware, although it is possible that he was the subject to some kind of phishing attack. I would not personally give him the benefit of the doubt though.

If you search for his profile you will see that his U# is 378211. If you go to https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php you can search for this number and see that he was "auto banned" within the last 30 days (an auto ban is just a specific way that a moderator banns someone, it is either a button on their profile or a button on the moderator console - I forget which - if a moderator banns someone the other way then the ban does not show up on the mod log).

I can say for certain that erwin45 was in fact banned

What thread did you find the trojan wallet in? Did you report the post for having a link to malware so others do not have the same fate?

The reason for my skepticism is because someone recently made a very similar claim in this thread and it turns out that his account was banned.

I don't see where it says that. His post is expressing interest just like the many other people who have posted here.

^^^this is the only time he posts in this thread. The OP does not subsequently name him later.

I sent you a PM. I am also interested.

Your account was banned. It was not hacked.

#fail

Looking at your last 40 posts, I see that a lot of them are shit posts. Also the "hacker" appears to have not logged in nor posted from your account.

Did your account happened to get banned?

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.

Not true, you could potentially claim incompetence and that the funds were stolen from you and/or your computer was hacked and bitcoin was stolen. Since you have zero trading history this would be plausible.

Assuming you are a shill of the company it would allow the company to retain a positive image and would allow the company to continue to be able to recruit additional advertisers.
Also not true. Most people have been silent on the issue (it is generally rare that once someone is actually participating to speak out against the person who will end up paying them). The few that have not been silent have either requested escrow or asked for a 10 day payout. Even if they ask for a 10 day payout they are still risking giving free advertising, only for less time.
The "shills" are likely the campaign participants who do not want to speak out about the person who will pay them (as I mentioned above). You also do not know which accounts are actually "shills" and which are voicing legit concerns.

There are several very trustworthy escrow providers that I am fairly certain would be able to provide escrow for free or for very little. A few that come to mind are devthedev (I think he might be on vacation), dooglus, tomatocage, monbux, among others.

Macro has a history of trading on this forum and his trust rating reflects that. Although the amount of funds in question would represent more then he has ever been trusted with in the past (at least according to his received trust feedback) the chances of macro actually paying are much higher then the OP actually paying

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.