I think it'd be great - but how would you prevent defaulting?
Prosper.com is USD-based peer-to-peer lending. You should familiarize yourself with their history, problems, and how they overcame them before attempting a BTC equivalent. Their biggest problem early on was the default rate exceeding the interest rate paid to the lenders. They overcame that problem by doing credit checks and better digging into people's financial histories to give a more accurate picture to potential lenders.
In my opinion, you'll have to either do credit checks on the people asking for loans, or do insanely high interest rates to protect against defaults (which would likely only further aid the number of defaults happening).
To me, one of the most prominent aspects of prosper was that lenders only funded part of the loan. This split the cost of a default across many lenders, and allowed for easier diversification of your funds. Something like that with Bitcoin would be very interesting to me. |
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runaway train..
up up and away? runaway train's tend to crash. unless the track never ends  Or you get them up to 88 MPH and have 1.21 Jiggawatts running through your flux capacitor. |
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I can tell you want went wrong in less than 10 words without even reading that article:
They tried to emulate the flawed FED model.
Basically. Also, I read that article months ago. |
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I thank you for your kind words. However, they are unnecessary. I am not interested in believing. Indeed I try very hard not to believe in anything and be the ultimate sceptic. I am interested in logic and in finding ways of proving which claims contradict each other. I'm the type of guy who demands that others disprove his arguments and gets angry at those who avoid answering questions.
I'm all for logic as a tool, but if logic can explain the whole of the universe, then logic is greater than the universe. I don't believe this is true, and if you do, it sounds like you believe in something beyond the universe. Besides, ask a physicist. They'll make it clear that the universe is probabilistic, not deterministic. The field of probabilistic logic is very new, but very intriguing. Also, since you are insistent that people answer questions posed to them, please answer this one for me: What is the sound of one hand clapping? |
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Haha I doubt bitcoins would be worth >$100 right now, but definitely not below $4 ever again, maybe even $5. The great spring stability is a great indicator since during that period the price remained stable despite the amount of bitcoins circulating increasing, telling us it will have only 1 general direction: UP  Golden Opportunities are falling under the iron grip  I think we underestimate the devastating effect the MtGox hack had.. We understand bitcoin clearly so we knew this didn't mean bitcoin was not secure, and most here understand how a hack like this, after such explosive growth, was unavoidable and ... neededbut the to everyone else ..... I find the reasoning quite odd. Why would bitcoins be worth over $100 when there is such a small spending infrastructure in place for bitcoin? I would expect it to be a ways bit higher than it is now but definitely not a huge difference like that. A significant segment of the public was excited about bitcoin at the time. After the hack, 90% of those people swore off bitcoins and made up their minds it was nothing but a scam. If they hadn't, our community would be MUCH larger by now. All those extra hands would have built the spending infrastructure much quicker. But, meh... we've done well enough and it's time we are rewarded for our hard work. We're not ready to see $100, but with slow steady growth, we will start to pull back in some of the people who thought it was a scam. |
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Way too many people using this service now. Leased work finishes way too fast for it to be viable as a primary income source, unlike how it used to be  There are two types of users: purchasers and miners. I need to know which you are to fully understand your statement. Either way, you just need more purchasers so that the hashing power is leased more often and split between more purchasers. So, there are not enough people using this service  . |
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Nice sound effects... It must be fun to be you. |
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Where does that say you have to believe in alternate universes? Clue: it doesn't. Why do you define religion so narrowly?
I apologise, I did not want to divert the flow of the debate. Spirituality and moral values are not empirical phenomena. Nor are they adequately (or even correctly) described as axiomatic systems. They require a different, non-empirical, type of phenomena, to be "real". An alternate universe is a simple description of this non-empirical reality. The best explanation I know of is by Terry Pratchett in Hogfather: “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand - AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point-"
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
I am a fan of Hogfather, but I still don't agree with you. Spirituality and moral values are absolutely empirical for me. Again, from wikipedia: The word empirical denotes information acquired by means of observation or experimentation.
I believe you should not steal because I have observed what happens to people who steal. I'm not talking about laws and punishments, I'm talking about how it affects their psyche regardless of whether or not they get caught. I believe that people are able to communicate nonverbally on a level that isn't explainable by simply observing them externally. But if you are one of those people, your observation is that a message was communicated clearly. In my experience, this only happens with people you are very close to, and verbal discussions afterwards can confirm the internal observation. To me, it is precisely this type of connection that I call "spirituality". Extended beyond individuals, this same type of connection exists with the universe itself. When I come to a roadblock, by communicating my intentions to no person, but simply my surroundings the universe often clears a path for me. Spirituality is about interconnectedness, and if you are blind to it, I will pray for you. It exists in this universe, on this planet, in every breath and every thought. There is no need to draw a line and separate the interconnected reality from your reality. It is possible, but the line only keeps you from experiencing the fullness and richness of life. Open your mind, and more importantly, your heart, and you will find truth. |
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Thanks for that. I didn't include any of the lending forum options since Patrick has already covered them. This is focusing on the GLBSE listed securities. Ah I didn't notice the GLBSE in the title... or maybe you added it  . |
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In most brick and mortar stores, I don't think there's much of a problem with double spending. In order to pull it off, you'd have to immediately stop after buying your physical goods and try to whip up a new transaction--probably sending coins back to yourself--and somehow broadcast it louder to the network than the merchant's POS device. Chances are the timing will not work out in your favor. Zero confirmation transactions should be fine in most cases. If I pay a merchant with no fee attached, and then step outside the store and double spend the same coins with a large fee attached, then surely the second transaction would get into the chain first. Am I wrong? Surely, no. Possible, yes. However, there are many places in the world where scamming a local store will quickly make all merchants in the area refuse to deal with you except possibly on a cash-in-hand basis. And some won't even deal with you then as a matter of principle. I know it sounds strange to those of you who hide in the crowds of cities, but us rural folk don't have the luxury of being dishonest and getting away with it. |
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I regularly do work for a guy in India. When I suggested he pay in Bitcoin, this was his response: Thanks for introducing me to Bitcoins, a nice decentralized currency system and I guess it has real issues with money laundering. I was able to download its client and for past few hours it is synchronizing with the network and it also gave me an address which I can use to request coins.
Since I don't have any coins, to send you a payment, I will need to buy coins using a credit card and this step involves some processing fees. May be I can mine coins but I have little idea about how to set it up.
Lets stick with PayPal because it would help me to keep all accounting at one place and save time in long run. On top of that I would add a bonus component to the project amount for celebrating successful project completion and cover up any fees or misc. expenses.
So it seems Bitcoin doesn't have a very good reputation in his region, and they are hard to acquire. He would rather pay me more to cover Paypal fees than spend the time to figure it out. Of course, this is just one guy, but maybe it gives an idea of the issues Indians face getting bootstrapped in the Bitcoin economy. |
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Not all religions believe in a second universe. Many just believe things about this one that cannot be validated with evidence, only faith.
I would not classify that as religion. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion: Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Where does that say you have to believe in alternate universes? Clue: it doesn't. Why do you define religion so narrowly? |
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Why are wire transfers affected?
Because: along with 5% of US Dollar wire transfers which is an unfortunate flow-on effect. would be good to know to/from which banks specifically
Agreed. That doesn't help... wtf is a "flow-on effect"? Because Dwolla withdrawals are delayed, a number of our users have cancelled their Dwolla withdrawals and are performing wire transfers. This has increased the number of wire transfers being sent out, slowing down some wire transfers in America slightly. No particular banks are affected, it simply depends on the number of withdrawals in the queue and a number of other factors like withdrawal limits for a given Mt.Gox owned account, and so on. Thank you for the clarification. |
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Why are wire transfers affected?
Because: along with 5% of US Dollar wire transfers which is an unfortunate flow-on effect. would be good to know to/from which banks specifically
Agreed. That doesn't help... wtf is a "flow-on effect"? |
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Could you do the same thing as was done at the time of the big hack last year and transfer a specified number of bitcoins to a specified address, after having announced the address and the amount? Ideally, we would see the amount moved cover the total asks, at minimum.
And yes moving a large amount of coins would be a good idea.
This. |
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Mining hardware monopoly. Much less harmful, and a temporary situation.
I don't like ANY monopoly ... free market fail. The first to market always has a temporary monopoly.... unless you pass a law that all new market entrants must share all their information with a competitor before beginning operations this will never change. And that is definitely not a free market situation. |
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Again, why? They can't keep up with the orders they have now, why would they need more unhappy customers? Assuming their ASIC plans come to fruition as planned, they are literally going to be the only game in town. For better or worse, you can deal with them or you can deal with no one at that point, so again, what's the incentive on their part?
Once again, I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment, but the hard realities of business clash with ideals.
This scares me a little bit. Mining monopoly ? No thanks ! Mining hardware monopoly. Much less harmful, and a temporary situation. |
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