Cognitive dissonance.

Why do people keep saying this? It's not so, I can see the trust that has been left for you.
If I was going to deal with you, I look at all your trust, not just what it says over there
<-------


The idea of being able to get on level 2 simply by applying or recommending someone is ridiculous. It would lead to a torrent of trust and feedback bartering in order to appear to be a suitable candidate.
The way to neutralise the over importance of level 2 trust is to leave more of your own, so that prospective trading partners get as much information as possible when they look at profiles.
Hopefully, when the new forum layout comes, low level feedback will be immediately visible on our profiles, not hidden by default as it is now. 

Hey, I know Bitcoinland has its own rules, but don't you really see any difference between the two scenarios?
It's not "uncommon in crypto" for the whole management team of successful million dollar startups to be portrayed on their own website by pictures of other people??
A few examples please.
Nice sig btw.

And this



The prize for STRAWMAN OF THE WEEK goes to Eric Rosby. Or whoever the hell you are.

How strange.
Bit of a rocky start so far, wouldn't you say?
Falling out with each other, dodgy sig campaign, purchasing glitch, profitability down, equipment down and of course, the superheroes on your ass and now this, one of your "team of experts" looks very similar to a reporter working for an Iranian news agency and then hey presto everybody's photographs vanish.
What next in your list of calamities?
'Hydropower dam' affected by drought?

Shit does happen of course, so how about a straight answer to a simple question...are you Eric Rosby?
As in this screenshot of your home page before you deleted the pictures?
If so, how about some proof?

According to his Twitter feed, the coin shouldn't be a problem, looks like he's found "a good way".....



I'm interested in options, so I had a look at them, saw Belize in the t&c and read this standard stuff

"We're a bunch of bitcoin enthusiasts, traders and programmers who have been involved in the Bitcoin space from the very beginning."

I'm sure they're legit, but I wonder how many people have been involved in Bitcoin "from the very beginning". Thousands, if all the claimants are to believed.

What else can you do about it?
This thread only seems to be getting you unfulfilled promises....

Not wanting to be a dick here mate, but if you


and knowingly went into ponzi, not a lot of sympathy.

I know we're all libertarians and it's 'buyer beware' and all that, but doing this is essentially stealing by proxy from the later suckers, and enriching some scumbag who can't even do a decent con in the first place.

Actually, if you take it one step further and suppose that a lender was bearish about the bitcoin price over the term of the loan, he could lend from his bitcoin holding and take a profit (or hedge a larger loss) as well as be paid a fee, defined here as interest.

And a couple of steps further than that, an enterprising escrow could automate what would effectively be a P2P betting site, continually mediating a market, holding or liquidating the security and taking a nice profit.

   

Similar points have been raised on another USD loan secured by Bitcoin recently.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=874378.0

The difference between that loan and this one is that he is offering to maintain the collateral bitcoin at 120% of the value of the principal.

I made, as did others, some points about the vulnerability to change in the $BTC rate, but as the OP in the other thread finally got around to was that there doesn't have to be.

OP has real life short term need for $X but doesn't want to sell his xBTC because he's neutral/bullish on the price. Fair enough.
The lender has $X doing nothing in the bank, sees a chance of making some interest and says ok.
 xBTC go to escrow, $X go to borrower.
Loan period ends, $X plus interest go back to lender, xBTC back to borrower.
End of story.
At 120% maintained value of collateral, he wanted to pay 1% a month and was offered 3% on $1000.

As I said on the other thread, it also can be a way for the borrower to speculate on the value of Bitcoin increasing over the period of the loan. He either buys Bitcoin with the dollars or leaves it as Bitcoin if that is the method of transfer.
Even if that is his motivation, it doesn't put the lender at risk if he has loaned spare dollars and not affected his bitcoin holding, and if the OP tops up the security in bitcoin automatically.
But as it's a speculative buy, there should also be a stop loss. If the deal's done at 360, then there's an automatic sell order organised by the escrow at 300 + slippage of at least 10% i.e. 330 and you bail out immediately the borrower stops maintaining his margin. Just like Wall St.
That's not necessarily bad for the OP, if it goes down when he thinks it should go up, then he's probably best out of it with his shirt. And the lender still gets their dollars back.

I don't use Bitfinex, how much would they charge you for 75% extra leverage, 7 against 4 bitcoin, to go long on Bitcoin for a month?

I had some sympathy with you over the sell/pawn skins scenario and was puzzled why you got this illogical trust
"Looking for 15btc "loan" while in another thread is selling the collateral he wants to use. Obviously will not repay any loan and will default to sell the collateral."

BUT
this is a silly emotional move you're making here imo.
What do you hope to achieve by it?

Has your owner, Mr. Paul Roberson



found out why this man, Mr. Louis Toscani



is pretending to be him?

I would think that Abraaj Capital, a billion dollar private equity firm, would be very grateful to be told that someone based in Dubai and pretending to be their Associate Director on Linkedin https://ae.linkedin.com/pub/louis-toscani/23/b81/223 is in fact, running a cloudmining scam startup in Chatanooga.

Hey, don't thank me, glad to help out an honest bitcoin entrepreneur like yourselves anytime.

 

Not sure what is worse, your trust rating or that ponzi.
Dirty site too, my AV is jumping up and down.

I totally agree with you that people should do all the due dilligence possible before parting with their coin.
Puppet's (not my) thread is an honest attempt to quantify known characteristics of scammers before they stop paying.



Getting to know that they've stopped paying is a bit late really.

GAW is listed as Possibly legit, actually, but I'm not nitpicking, just saying that thread is a useful reference for potential investors and, as far as I know, the author doesn't earn anything from it, unlike the HYIP style monitor sites.
He also clearly states

In my opinion, that cmmonitor site exists solely as a referral farm for the owner. He links to any and all sites that pretend to cloud mine. Sites like his are part of the problem, not the solution.
If you want to help eradicate these scammers by putting off naive investors victims who are their life blood, much better to support Puppet and his thread where he objectively analyses cloud miners with no personal vested interest in the outcome

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=860400.0

You'd better Communicate with him then, Mr. Director, that someone is pretending to be him. Some guy who claims to be a Venture Capitalist, those guys will do anything for a buck

https://ae.linkedin.com/pub/louis-toscani/23/b81/223

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?

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.

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?

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...

Lol, you know who this guy reminds me of?
Michael Brandenburg from the late lamented Bitcoin Trader ponzi.
Same MO: leaden passive/aggressive sarcasm, personally offended that not everyone wants a hit on his Kool Aid and blahblah everything will be all right, just give me time.
Oh yeah, and a dash of Cryptory, the late lamented mining ponzi, with the pics of 'company management' and names with no net footprint.
Unless you're a photographer from Northumberland in your spare time.