@iqbal26: one is not required to choose WeTrust, I suppose. WeTrust is building a lending and insurance platform by leveraging social capital, trust networks, and blockchain. One that can replace existing financial system that requires 'trusted third parties'. using smart contracts, we can create decentralized Lending Circles, aka ROSCAs, without intervention from WeTrust or any other 3rd party.

hey everyone, just a friendly reminder:
we're running a competition where we give the winner an ADDITIONAL 20% BONUS on top of their crowdsale contribution. It's a 'best comment' contest where you respond to our essay. Comment here --> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1776355.0

Deadline for comments to be considered for bonuses would be Feb 11th 11:59PM UTC

look forward to hearing from you all!

@mike77777: yes that's correct!

the wechat group qr code has expired in the OP -  is there a new qr code that can be used?

@jwiz168: great to have you! feel free to also join our slack channel to chat directly with us 

@Invester: Much of our team is Asian American, though some of our families do have roots in China!  We encourage everyone who is passionate about the potential of decentralized banking on the blockchain to participate, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion!
After all, ROSCAs are used all around the world, by almost all cultures and religions, spanning countries such as India, Mexico, China, Turkey, Japan, Kenya, Russia, Brazil, Korea, and many more! Check out our blog post which chronicles some of the history of this rich cultural tradition that serves to address the challenges of Economic Security AND Economic Growth

@pol5: There is no need to register on the wetrust.io website right at this moment, in order to participate in bounty program. Having said that, we are working hard right now to enable registration on our website very soon, and will have an announcement when that is ready! You will need to register in order to receive the bounty when crowdsale concludes in April, and anyone who wants to participate in crowdsale will also need to register on our website. So, this is a priority for us, and will be available soon!  Thank you for your patience and support!

@cointrader83: Yes, we do have a legal entity setup in the US!  

@DISPERADO: Yes this is the registration form itself, and everything you need for participating in bounties is in the 1st posting! 
You will be able to register your account at wetrust.io very soon, and you will need to do that in order to contribute donations and receiving bounties at the conclusion of the crowdsale.

@daylox: Minimum funding limit is 1,500 - we will add this to the main post. We will also make an announcement regarding escrow. Stay tuned, and please join our slack channel!

@dre1982: Sorry for the confusion!  12,000 is the maximum that we will accept, and minimum will be 1,500.  Sorry we have gotten this question quite a bit - do you think there is a better way for us to phrase this? Perhaps we should just say that 12,000 is the maximum and 1,500 is the minimum?
Would love to get your feedback!

@fikihafana: we will make an announcement regarding escrow participants soon!!

@PolyPanto: appreciate your comments - please do join our slack channel and look forward to constructive feedback on how we can continue improving! thank you! 

@kamiyama: which sign-up doesn't work? links for bounty sign-up is in the second post of this thread, here
let me know if that's what you're looking for, and if you have any questions or suggestions! thank you!

After reading this thread, I felt compelled to write an article with my take on who the real Satoshi Nakamoto might be.

According to Greek mythology, humankind did not know to use fire until a titan by the name of Prometheus brought it down from Mount Olympus. For this, he earned the gratitude of the humans but was brutally punished by the Gods.

It’s unclear if Satoshi Nakamoto, the modern day Prometheus who introduced humankind to Bitcoins, has suffered a similar fate. No one knows what led Satoshi to create Bitcoin, whether Satoshi is a man or a woman, what race or religious background Satoshi possesses, or even if he or she really goes by the name “Satoshi Nakamoto”. Perhaps Satoshi Nakamoto isn’t a single individual, but an alter ego adopted by a collective, calling themselves “Satoshi” the way others might say “I am Spartacus”...


I won't post the entire article here, for fear of spamming, so if you're interested, please take a look here: http://blog.wetrust.io/the-real-satoshi-nakamoto/

would love to hear your feedback  

@gambit1, thanks for your question. I wasn't 100% clear on the question, so please do not hesitate to follow up.

We are currently focused on building out the product and community, but will start pursuing a funding event sometime in the future.
Please let us know if you have any feedback on our project and you're welcome to join our slack here: https://www.wetrust.io/slack-invite

@Patatas, thank you for your questions. I'll try my best to address them, but please do not hesitate to follow up if I have misunderstood the spirit of your questions!


Q: Almost 90% of the platforms claim to do the same things, which you're doing with an excuse that Bitcoin isn't capable of doing them. Take decentralization for example.  

The initial product we are building is an app with smart contracts that replicate the way in which Rotating Savings and Credit groups (ROSCAs) operate offline. A ROSCA is simply a group of people (typically friends, co-workers, alumni, relatives) who agree to contribute a fixed amount of money every fixed period of time (say, monthly). They also agree on how the money will be distributed/ invested. For example, it could be distributed via an auction (based on interest), or distributed if someone has a family emergency, or invested into farmland when the total funds hit a threshold. You can imagine many scenarios where the group saves and decides on usage of funds jointly.

The most common is an auction-based system, which is also a very structured mechanism for close associates to build savings together effectively - akin to group exercise. One can also view ROSCAs as a simple form of mutual insurance, where you would bid higher interest for the pool when you need the money, and you refrain from bidding until the rainy day (and accumulate interest while doing so).

The reason we start with a ROSCA is because they operate among circles of friends, and each ROSCA is invite only. This addresses case where incentives don't align between lender/ borrower in p2p networks. Personal reputation among friends and professional networks creates a drastically reduced incentive to default, relative to the decision making process used when defaulting against a faceless bank or group of strangers that have lent you money on the internet.

After groups of individuals establish ROSCAs and circles of trust that are proven via transactions and tethered social profiles, we will also build ways to connect the different groups. This will then enable creation of larger, more capable and better-resourced ROSCAs - with additional features such as organization management tools, insurance frameworks, etc...

Note that we deliberately want to start with ROSCAs because they are by nature, used among groups of individuals that know each other offline, and these groups have hundreds of years of operational history and these learnings can be built into the design.  In fact, these ROSCAs are used in almost all countries and have an operational history starting near 200BC. They're called tandas (Latin America), chit funds (India), cundinas (Mexico), susu (West Africa and the Caribbean), hui (Asia), Game'ya (Middle East), kye (계) (South Korea), tanomosiko (頼母子講) (Japan), pandeiros (Brazil), juntas (Peru), etc.

Q: You know [by] making lending P2P [it] has always resulted in something terrible as seen in the past.  A new platform for scams I'd rather say.

One of the biggest challenges of P2P lending is that individuals are lending to strangers, and that there are few avenues for recourse when there is a default.
What we are building is a structure to enable the activities of Rotating Savings and Credit groups, which are used among individuals that know each other. Our platform is a way to codify, track, and grow existing trust based networks, and facilitate growth of existing networks with 'nearby' networks when there is a desire to amplify the organization's capabilities to save, invest, etc... We want to start with something well known and anchor our initial community with folks who know each other personally. There will no lending between people who do not know each other until our platform is secure, is able to detect potential fraud, and has the correct incentives to deter fraud.

Q: Why do you we should trust a third party with our savings? Bitfinex said that too and we know how it ended.  

Our platform creates the smart contracts that govern the savings and credit framework. We will design the platform such that we are not an attractive target. In addition, each individual and ROSCA group holds their own private keys to their accounts and there is no 3rd party that would have access. Security is a core concern of ours, and there have been too many cases like the Bitfinex example, where even the best precautions may not ever be sufficient.

Q: Do you comply with standard insurance polices or everything will be controlled by your developers?

We choose ROSCA as entry point (simple and doable given unstable platform environment) and will build out insurance products as this platform grows and become stable. Insurance isn't quite ready yet for the blockchain, but the ROSCA will be a stepping-stone that facilitates the creation of trust networks, which is the foundation for mutual insurance. Rest assured, the insurance product will not be built unless we see a clear path for it to be successful. The underlying blockchain network must be stable and there has to be a simple way claims to be paid out. At this time, we want to focus on building a stepping-stone and community that will allow us to transition when the perfect time comes.
    
In regards to compliance, we are working with a reputable US law firm with over a hundred years of history and ample experience in FinTech. The two lead attorneys have over 20 years experience with SEC compliance and securities litigation and General Counsel experience serving prominent crypto-currency/ FinTech startups (>$70m raised from top VCs, leading a successful acquisition for >$500m).

Q: In case I die, who is the next person my kids would ask for my coins? A lot of complications I see.

If we make a wallet in the future, and you hold a wallet and private keys, we will provide recommendations on how to store your private keys such that one's loved ones do not lose access to your funds in the event of death.

Regarding our initial ROSCA product, we will also list out all the potential edge case scenarios that may occur, and the resolution path for how to deal with them when they do occur.  The team is hard at work debating edge cases and designing solutions to resolve. We will share these with the community and fill any gaps that are raised. When new edge cases occur, individual ROSCA groups will be able to resolve through their internal vote, and we can adopt best practices from ROSCAs as the corpus grows.

hmm, we tested it on firefox and it seems to be working fine - can you tell us what error message you see?

thanks!

What do folks think about this article and the potential for bitcoin to become more mainstream for those that lack access to 'traditional' financial institutions. Is there the potential for a growth in adoption akin to how MPesa has grown to the extent that 43% of Kenya's GDP flows through M-Pesa.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/africa-may-leapfrog-traditional-banking

“The combination of ubiquitous Internet-connected mobile devices and digital currency presents a tremendous opportunity to radically expand access to financial services on a worldwide basis.”Jeremy Allaire, Circle Internet Financial,

old infographic from 2013, and the #s have only grown since - would be great if someone has a newer version.


edit: also not sure why the image doesn't show...

There are also current BTC owners who have regular jobs at companies, and therefore have retirement accounts. These people would rather buy a BTC ETF instead of S&P. I wouldn't overlook this crowd.