Is there anyone out there who offers a true bitcoin pawn service? By that, I mean, a place where someone can pawn their bitcoin?
Well, one way to do it is to find someone willing to sell you a CALL option and then sell your coins today at market value to meet your immediate cash needs.
There is an options market (MPOE) but only for current month and next-month, and there are significant premiums paid for this.
Another approach is to sell half of your coins (750 BTC of the 1,500 BTC) for about $9,000 USD and that gives you the cash you wanted now. Then you send maybe half of what is left (e.g. 375 BTC) to ICBIT.se and buy 750 BTC of BUZ2 futures contracts.
Then if the exchange rate increases in three months, you realize the increase from the gains on a total of 1,500 BTC -- the same just as if you had never sold any to begin with. This gain comes from the 375 BTC you still hold in your own wallet, plus the 375 you sent to ICBIT plus the gain on the 750 BUZ2 contracts (which is paid daily as "margin variance"). This is using 1:2 leverage at ICBIT. You can leverage up to 1:10, but the higher the leverage the higher the risk of seeing forced liquidation.
There are some assumptions like the how gains or losses in BUZ2 show follow closely the gains or losses in the BTC/USD, but that isn't guaranteed. There can be big differences, as at one point in time BUZ2 was trading over $14 with BTC/USD in the $12s, and also recently BUZ2 was trading under $10 when BTC/USD was just under $12. So if you are forced to sell BUZ2 before settlement (the end of the BUZ2 contract) you may end up taking a loss on the difference between where the future is trading versus the spot market rate.
There's also counterparty risk. ICBIT.se offers futures contracts which is a regulated activity in most areas but this service is operating anonymously. If tomorrow they disappear, or perhaps they "get hacked", there's likely no recourse. Your 375 BTC would likely then be gone as well as any gains that might have accumulated.
But in comparison, that loss would be lower than giving 1,500 BTC as collateral on a $7,500 loan and then your lender disappears (because with the ICBIT method, you still keep 375 BTC in your own wallet plus the $9,000 from selling the 750 BTC initially). If you are willing to gamble that the exchange rate will be going up, you could even send fewer BTCs to ICBIT and do a higher leverage. Depositing 150 BTC and levering up just under 4:1 lets you buy those 750 BUZ2, but levered that much puts you at risk of having your position being force liquidated if the exchange rate were to drop roughly near 15% (to under $11, for example).
But that's an option you might not be familiar with but might find useful so I wanted to share that here.