What is considered collateral?
Collateral is something that can easily be resold to cover the loan value plus interest should the loaner default on the loan.
- The best collateral is another crypto-currency, such as Litecoin (also written as LTC). Coins must be moderately traded on multiple exchanges.
- Some digital wares such as domain names can be considered as long as the user cannot recover it.
- Small valuable items that can be shipped though the mail - i.e. gold, silver, iphones, etc.
- Large items, such as a motorcycle or guitar can be used if you live close to the person giving you the loan. Try localbitcoins.com
What is not considered collateral?
- Items not in hand. Don't trust a user that promises to give you something *when* they default! Tracking numbers only show something has been mailed - it could be an empty box.
- Future income. You can prove you'll make xx coins in the next few days, but nothing forces you to send those coins to pay your debt.
- Identification. So what if they can prove who they are. Are you going to spend more money and time taking them to court on untested legal grounds? You'll probably just walk away, like everyone does. ID is useless.
- Games codes or similar. To verify the collateral you need to use the code, which destroys the collateral. Consider this a purchase, not a loan. (Post in Digital Goods instead)
- Most new alt-coins or alt-coins that trade for satoshis are not good collateral as they can become worthless overnight.
- Paypal should never be used - they are anti-bitcoin and will rule against you 100% of the time. Escrow can't even help, as paypal charge backs can come over 6 months later!
- Most valuable online accounts can easily be recovered by social engineering (the user contacting support to say they were hacked, and regain control of the account)
