6 ms·
Show HN: Spread bitcoins by lending to friends
- louiscipher 13y agoThis is an awesome idea. I just with that they allow account creation outside of facebook.
- alxbrun 13y ago+1
- argumentum 13y agoRight now, Facebook is the only good way to know that "Bob Jones" is really my friend named "Bob Jones". This idea depends on that level social trust. I wouldn't loan out bitcoins to strangers. Just friends who want to learn about bitcoin, as they won't screw me over. Even if they don't return the loan in btc, they might buy me a drink.
- mariusz331 13y agoyou might get a cease and desist from zynga but don't give in!
- songzme 13y agoGreat idea! Now Im going to Spread Bitcoins by lending to friends
- jessehea 13y agoThis is a fantastic way to spread BTC over a social layer! Great idea
- BrainInAJar 13y agoFinally, a way to short BTC!
- dualogy 13y agoBut how would you hedge your shorts?
- dnautics 13y agoby placing a corresponding bid on mtgox and paying back your friend in bitcoin. It's kind of a dick thing to do to your friend, though, I suppose.
- BrainInAJar 13y agoDick thing or no, it's just business.
- JoachimSchipper 13y agoMost ideas containing the word "friend" are not "just business".
- BrainInAJar 13y agoMost things containing "money" are. Don't mix business & friendship or you'll lose both. That includes "lending" BTC.
- dnautics 13y ago>Most things containing "money" are. So, donations to charity, "business" or no? For the donor. Obviously for the charity, it is. >Don't mix business & friendship or you'll lose both I started a 501(c)(3)-pending nonprofit. My board members are my friends, because I know that they are morally upright, mindful, and therefore will act as a reliable second pair of eyes to keep me from doing something illegal, immoral, or both. For now, it seems like having my friends help me out with this business has strengthened our friendships.
- yayitswei 13y agoWe started this project at the Bitcoin 2013 Conference Hackathon in May and have been working on it since. The idea is to get people started with Bitcoin easily through friends. I'm close to 100% repayment rate on the loans I've made, though not everyone pays back in cash!
- bearwithclaws 13y agoOP here: we are also doing a launch special where every new sign ups will get 0.001 BTC on us. If you don't own any bitcoins yet, you'll get your first one with BWF :)
- argumentum 13y agoIf bitcoin succeeds, IMO one "satoshi" (0.000000001 btc) could be worth what one dollar is worth today. So you might just be giving everyone 1 million dollars ;).
- wikwocket 13y agoI know you are just spit-balling, but that value for a satoshi would put the total value of all 21 million bitcoins at 2.1 quadrillion dollars, which appears to be about 200 times the value of all USD in existence.:)
- Aqueous 13y agoCool beginnings of a micro-credit economy for bitcoin.
- oxwrist 13y agoAwesome idea! If you just gotten your first bitcoin, you can immediately put it into good use by purchasing the Humble Bundle now (they accept bitcoins): https://www.humblebundle.com/ https://www.humblebundle.com/
- blueprint 13y agoBig ups to you guys for launching!! Two of the guys who built this are my pals. Very dedicated makers - they'll look after you.
- bearwithclaws 13y agoThanks Paul!!
- tlrobinson 13y agoVery nice. Definitely one of the better looking Bitcoin services out there.
- yayitswei 13y agoThanks! Interestingly, one piece of feedback we got was that the site made bitcoins seem like play money. They definitely have real-world value though. I just used it to pay a friend back for an Amazon order.
- EGreg 13y agoYou should check out http://ripple.com http://ripple.com
- bernatfp 13y agoPeople should avoid Ripple. Building an economy under a system that is in hands of one company isn't a very good idea.
- pdog 13y agoIsn't Ripple a decentralized system, and weren't there plans to open source it?
- tlrobinson 13y agoThat's their stated intention, but so far it's completely centralized and (mostly) closed source. The biggest problem most Bitcoiners have with Ripple is the creators control the allocation of the currency used within the system (XRP).
- cuttooth 13y agoThe 1000 friends minimum thing is hilariously high.
- bearwithclaws 13y agoAh! It's a joke (albeit a bad one, by me). The minimum friends limit to join is actually 50.
- daverecycles 13y agoWhen I shared my link on Facebook, it wouldn't show a thumbnail with the HTTPS URL but I changed it to an HTTP URL and it appeared. The thumbnail/preview is very attractive and I think it'll help get people to click. :)
- yayitswei 13y agoThanks for the feedback Dave. We're looking into the thumbnail issue, is anyone else not seeing the thumbnail?
- kerkeslager 13y agoI don't have a Facebook account, so I can't sign up. I think this is probably true of a lot of Bitcoin users--for a lot of Bitcoin users, Bitcoin is a way to stay off the grid, and being on Facebook would defeat the purpose. My suggestion is to provide a way to sign up without Facebook.
- ErsatzVerkehr 13y agoBitcoin... a monetary system that requires internet connectivity and CPU usage... in which every transaction is recorded forever and the database is replicated by all participants... is "off the grid"?
- milesokeefe 13y agoIt's the closest you can get to off the grid.
- vhf 13y agoNope. Zerocoin is. (Disclaimer : I'm a fervent Bitcoin supporter, I like its pseudonymous property and discard any anonymat claims. I've never used zerocoin because I don't have any use for it.)
- throwaway2048 13y agozerocoin is only a proposal at this time.
- tlrobinson 13y agoYou've never used ZeroCoin because an implementation of it doesn't exist yet... But libzerocoin is coming tomorrow: https://mobile.twitter.com/ZerocoinProject/status/352136561397215232 https://mobile.twitter.com/ZerocoinProject/status/3521365613...
- JumpCrisscross 13y agoCash? Gold? Cocaine? The way the actual "off-the-grid" economy works?
- intelliot 13y agoI had the privilege of meeting these guys while they were developing the initial version of the app. It has come a long way! Excited to watch it take off.
- yayitswei 13y agoThanks for your help at the hackathon Elliot! You're still user number 3 in the database.
- btbuildem 13y agoI've always wondered, is interest possible on BTC loans? Technically, it should not be, since there's a limited amount of coins. Are you qualified/classified/stamped/branded/innoculated/whatever to comply with US regulation bullshit? What's your business model here? Keep a % of the loan?
- wmf 13y agoThere's nothing stopping you from loaning, say, 1.0 BTC and asking for 1.1 BTC to be paid back later, but Bitcoin does not have any mechanism to help enforce such loans. There's a forum dedicated to it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0 Many people are skeptical of Bitcoin loans since the expected rate of return of holding BTC exceeds the rate of return of almost all legitimate businesses.
- patio11 13y agoMany people are skeptical of Bitcoin loans since the expected rate of return of holding BTC exceeds the rate of return of almost all legitimate businesses. To steal a tptacek line, "I hope to make the starburst of points which follow by implication rather than by explicit statement."
- gus_massa 13y agoInterest is not only to protect the bank (or lender) against inflation. It's also (one of ) the way that the bank gets paid. For a moment suppose that there is no inflation, no fraud, no bankrupts and no administrative commissions: If the bank gives you $100 and you pay in total $110 then the profit of the bank is $10.
- vidarh 13y agoInterest is just a function of a loan agreement - it is an entirely separate issue from the available supply of the currency in question. Even if you borrow monopoly money from a specific monopoly set, there can still be interest required on the loan. It may be impossible for you to fulfil your loan obligations if your supply of whatever currencies the lender will accept (which does not necessarily only have to be the original loan currency) is limited, but that's a separate issue.
- bobbyongce 13y agoThis is a great idea! This is one simple way to get started with Bitcoin and make Bitcoin more mainstream for the average person.
- quackerhacker 13y agoThink this is cool, please consider a Twitter sign up at the least, (not sure about others) I prefer not to reactivate my FB.
- pattle 13y agoI really really like the design, good job