General good practices:
- Lending used to only require some sort of "proof of reputation" (anything from a long post history, ID, or Web of Trust stats to a full credit report) from lendees. Due to an exceptionally high incidence of scamming, this is generally no longer the case. You generally MUST put up some form of collateral (usually some type of alternative cryptocurrency, like Litecoin or Quark). This depends heavily on the lender, and physical collateral may also be accepted (motorcycles, watches, PMs).
- Please refrain from requesting unnecessary "confidence loans" (a loan you don't need, but want to take out simply to show you'll repay). This was an issue a year or so ago, where scammers would take out incrementally larger loans, pay maybe .1BTC in interest, then take off with a 1BTC loan. A history of so-called confidence loans inspire more hesitancy than confidence.
- This subforum has an exceptionally high amount of trolling. Legitimate lendees are scared away or simply don't care to subject themselves to unjustified degradation. Skepticism is okay, but please try to be civil. Either way - if you request a loan, be prepared.
- Almost all loans issued in this subforum would be at rates considered to be exploitative in most countries. We're talking about something like 5-15% monthly (there are some more favorable alternatives, such as seeking out the Islamic Bank of Bitcoin). Use short-term loans responsibly, do not use loans for naked market positions or otherwise attempt to arb, and you should only use short-term lending from strangers as an absolute last resort.
Scam trends:
- There is an ongoing scam issue where "lenders" are saying they'll issue loans for collateral. The "lender" then takes the collateral and disappears. Prevent this by using reputable escrow providers or only dealing with lenders you trust. Keeping in mind that proving available funds isn't necessarily connected to whether or not a lender will steal collateral and disappear, you can also ask a lender asking for collateral to show he has the funds to lend you by signing a message with his private key (most BTC clients have a GUI allowing you verify messages, though they don't all use the same scheme to do this -- if a message fails to verify, you may wish to ask the signer to tell you which client and scheme he used so you can double-check using the same set-up he has ).
Please post new repeat scam tactics here. They will be added to the list.
Then how do you get a BTC / ETH loan?
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