So this morning I woke up asking myself this simple question, If Bitcoin achieves mass adoption, how would we solve the problem of ever increasing debt?

This blog post is more the ramblings of a crazy man than a scientific theory, but bear with me as I elaborate.

I have been investing in p2p lending sites for almost 2 years now, and constantly been running into the same problem........ There is no rule of law. This means that people can borrow money and not pay it back with nothing to stop them except a loss of reputation, which is not always tied to a real human being anyway.
I often have told myself that this is fine and it's the way the world should work, in this way we can weed out the bad lenders and too much borrowing would naturally correct itself as lenders are more careful of who they lend to. But is this a good thing? And is this the only solution a market would find?
What has upset me about the situation with non-paying borrowers is the way lenders sometimes become very aggressive in their comments about them, you will frequently see the term 'scammer' being used for anyone who decides they are not willing to pay a loan back. Granted often these people never intended to pay back the loan, so the label is correct, but the blanket aggression is worrying. I've also seen individual lenders hoping that non paying borrowers get arrested and thrown in jail and things as extreme as that.



This has lead me to wonder, how much will the lenders, who after all are just regular humans like me or you (perhaps), exploit the borrowers and what types of laws or rules will be introduced regarding the non payment of P2P loans. Currently the world only functions because new money is created to pay down old debt, but with Bitcoin that's simply not possible, so what would be the alternatives?
furthermore, who would be incharge of these laws, given the international nature of the internet?

I'm sure someone will correct me, but wasn't this the problem that lead to interest being outlawed under the 'usery' laws in days gone by when Gold was used as money?

Most of the sites impose a fixed interest rate based on the users credit rating, but this is also wrong for so many reasons and instantly kills the short term loan market on any platform that introduces it.

So what is the answer? How can we lend to each other without asking the borrower to put up their liberty as collateral? QE is a dirty word in Bitcoin circles, but without it, is it possible for our money to work for us all?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below,

also check out my new site when you get a chance, and keep your ears peeled for more information about AdFete, It's a reallly interesting new project I'm currently working on.

www.cryptosi.com

So this morning I woke up asking myself this simple question, If Bitcoin achieves mass adoption, how would we solve the problem of ever inc...

2016 in Bitcoin


I think Bitcoin's killer app is Equity Crowdfunding, I heard Vinay Gupta equate investing in a startup to buying a lottery ticket, so when investments can be a small as 10p then you have a nice place for people to gamble on companies legally. 

 My Predictions for 2016 :
1) Augur Becomes a BIG player despite Ethereum making little headway,
2) NXT becomes Bitcoin's main rival purely down to its asset exchange and products developed from it.
3 )Shapeshift.IO takes Bitcoin to a much bigger userbase by consolidating the value of Altcoins
4) The fiat world continues to print money
5) England get knocked out at the group stages of the Euros despite winnning all the qualifiers
6) Mainstream media tries to convince the west to go to a war with Russia. Nobody agrees
7) Banks are exposed of corruption in a huge scandal, nobody goes to jail
8) Counterparty continues to exist, People Continue to overlook it. Nobody cares
9) Someone decides to sell equity in a documentary via Blockchain tech.
10) Bitcoin price doubles slowly up to $500+ (takes a big jump when halving occurs)

 So there you have it, all these will become a reality, I'm going to try to produce videos next year, I've been planning it for some time now and never gotten around to it.

 Feel free to share your predictions in the comments section below.

2016 in Bitcoin I think Bitcoin's killer app is Equity Crowdfunding, I heard Vinay Gupta equate investing in a startup to buying a lo...


So you've heard about Bitcoin and you are wondering how you can make money from it?

The first thing you will read about is 'mining' and that is not nearly as productive as it used to be, also you need to take into account the price of mining equipment, then there is cloud mining which I've not yet invested in (and am very sceptical of). You could just hoard Bitcoin and wait for them to raise in value, but I think its a good idea to diversify.

So a good choice is to invest in assets which produce a dividend, these assets are 5 that I personally have invested in and would recommend for various reasons, but the main things to be considered when buying an asset are : The development team behind the asset, The ROI, The ease of use, Potential for capital gains. I have rated each asset on these factors.


So  without any further adieu and in no particular order here are the Crypto S.I Top 5 for Autumn 2015

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Dash Masternode    

At a cost of 1000 Dash which is the equivalent of 10.2369BTC ($2405), This is by far the most expensive asset on this list, however it also has the best development team behind it. Dash formerly known as Darkcoin is the 6th most popular of all the alternatives to Bitcoin and has remained popular thanks to leading features such as DarkSend and InstantX which provide anonymity and near instant transactions respectively. Also bear in mind that (allegedly) Bitshares and Ripple both have the means to manipulate their market value so that would make Dash 4th.

A Masternode is an integral part of the network and can be set up quite easily by following one of the various tutorials that can be found online (Here's the best one), once you have staked the needed 1000 Dash you can expect to earn DASH daily, The figures vary depending on many things but I calculate it to be around 15-25% per year. 

There are some people who are getting together on the Dash Forum here and sharing the cost of a masternode, so you could own a 10th of a masternode for 100Dash, this is a good idea, but you need to be aware of who you are investing with and do your due dilligence.

The development team behind the asset : 8/10
The ROI   6/10
The ease of use 3/10
Potential for capital gains 8/10
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BtcPop are a UK based P2P lending company, but that's not anything unique. The Thing about these guys is that they offer shares in their own platform, This is exciting, as short term loans is a massive industry in UK let alone worldwide.

On the BTCPop platform you can buy shares in both BTCPOP and Ardeva (A well known ID verification company), The dividend is paid directly into your btcpop wallet on the 1st of every month and you are free to withdraw it immediately or buy more shares. Since being introduced the shares have risen in value, and in a blossoming industry I can only see this trend continuing. 
Dividends are a direct portion of the revenues that these companies make.

The development team behind the asset : 8/10 (ArdevA 9/10)
The ROI   4/10 (ArdevA 2/10)
The ease of use 8/10
Potential for capital gains 8/10 (ArdevA 9/10)

 *between starting this article and publishing it I realised Btc pop shares had almost doubled in value during the month of September, and Ardeva shares had quadroupled, Looking at the lack of shares for sale I can see the prices only rising especially when Ardeva start paying a worthy dividend (although exactly how they will monetise is a bit of a mystery to me, the same was said about Google in 2001)
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These next two assets come from the NXT ecosystem, which as far as I'm concerned is the first and still the best Bitcoin 2.0 project. NXT is the only real competitor to the much anticipated Ethereum, although they are quite different, NXT benefits from having a fully functional decentralised platform, There are loads of features of NXT that you may find interesting such as proof of stake, NXT-Freemarket (which is a working competitor to OpenBazaar) and the amazing 'Supernet'.

The best thing about NXT is that it is decentralised, but you do not need to download an entire blockchain to use it. The 2 assets that I've chosen on the Nxt platform are both available on the asset exchange and they are:
MMNXT 979292558519844732 assetid - A market making assets which makes a steady daily profit, dividend is paid weekly every friday. It's around 0.5%-1% depending on how much money the fund has generated.
Coinomat 7474435909229872610 assetid - A rival to the heavily funded Shapeshift.io, Coinnomat is a simple hassle free way to trade crypto currencies without having to sign up and trades are completed within minutes. The interface (website) is arguably not as slick as Shapeshift, and the platform definitely has less funding, but we can all buy into this platform for as little as we like, whereas Shapeshift is having funding rounds via Bnktothefuture with a much higher minimum buy-in. A small fee is charged per transaction and a percenttage of this is is given as a dividend to shareholders, this is not always paid on time and obviously would change depending on the success of the service.

The development team behind the asset : MMNXT 7/10 (Coinomat 6/10)
The ROI   MMNXT 7/10 Coinomat(6/10)
The ease of use 8/10    -- tutorial can be found here 
Potential for capital gains 8/10 (Coinomat 9/10)
* I have given Coinomat a 9/10 mostly based on my view that trading between cryptocurrencies in this frictionless way will see a huge explosion in traffic sooner or later, no matter which altcoin comes to prominence, even if one of these recently touted nonsensical bank sponsored blockchain projects achieves critical velocity 

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 So that's my top 5 for autumn 2015, this is by no means an exhaustive list of whats available, and I invite you to comment on any that I've missed out, I also want to give a special mention to SuperNet and CounterParty as they are introducing plenty of new assets, It's also worth noting that Some very exciting projects Pangea, Augur and Ethereum are nearing completion and may well feature next season, if you want to be ahead of the game then check out the links.

I also have not included BTCPop trusted investment pool, which is guaranteed and pays out every few days.

This is my own personal view, I do hold shares in each of the assets, and you should take financial advice before risking your funds as their value can go up or down. I think that qualifies as a responsible disclaimer.

Follow us on twitter @crypto_si

Thanks for reading and good luck!

So you've heard about Bitcoin and you are wondering how you can make money from it? The first thing you will read about is 'minin...


What is MIM? It's known by various acronyms, and it means Man In The Middle.

MIM is a type of scam which some clever idiot decided to attempt to use against me. I was quite lucky not to get caught out as it was only the local bitcoin feedback system that saved me from losing £2000.

So here's how it works,
   The scammer makes a request with me at the same time they contact someone else and offer to sell them something, they then tell their buyer to deposit the payment into my account, Once the money has been deposited into my account I will send the scammer Bitcoin thinking that everything is fine and it's just another trade, however the scammers buyer will never recieve the goods they have paid the scammer for, and when they go to the police to get some much deserved justice, they only have my bank details as evidence, I dont know what happens to me after that but I'd assume I would have to re-imburse the scammed buyer and try to get my Bitcoin back from the scammer, which as we all know is nigh-on impossible.

So how did I avoid it?
  I was fortunate that The LocalBitcoin Platform is very difficult to scam with, There were a few factors in the trade which raised my suspicion, firstly the scammers account was under 24hrs old, a big red flag. Secondly The scammer seemed very very keen to do the deal off the localbitcoins platform, and wanted the bitcoins released extremely quickly. Finally during the negotiations of the deal, an alert appeared above the users name stating that they had violated terms of service, Together all these factors are enough to alert a seller to be EXTRA vigilant, and usually it would spell the end of any negotiations for most traders. On this occasion I was too fast to hand over my bank details so the scammers buyer did actually deposit £2000 into my account, she had no clue what bitcoin was!

How did things end?
  My situation got particularly complicated because the scammers buyer actually paid the money to me, at this point I needed to find the buyer and return their money, When I asked the scammer for ID they sent me the victims passport so luckily I had enough information to actually find the victim and contact her, the problem was that she was not home when I called but I was convinced at this point she had been scammed. I then had to be certain that whoever came forward claiming to be the victim was indeed the victim and not the scammer.



How can this be avoided in the future?
  I'm not too sure it can be stopped fully, but I think a good way to protect yourself is to ask for the 'buyer' to send you a picture of the receipt used to deposit funds, and have this receipt say TO PURCHASE BITCOIN, surely no 'victim' will be silly enough to buy something and write something totally different on the receipt when requested to. In this situation personal ID is really no protection at all.

What is MIM? It's known by various acronyms, and it means Man In The Middle. MIM is a type of scam which some clever idiot decided to...

I am thinking of making a video to help people with lending techniques for both btcjam and bitlending club. They will be based on the techniques that I'm using which have been successful for me.

I had a conversation about it with someone on google hangouts just now, so though I would share my advice via my blog for the rest of you:



hi
yes, ok I was thinking of making a little video for youtube on the subject
my methods were initially to follow some of the top investors, then I started to follow everyone I invested in, spending 0.01 on each investment (1BTC total -100 loans)
Avoiding rep-loans and people with accounts less than 3months old
people who paid on the due day would be unfollowed and people who paid far in advance would be noted and I would continue to follow them. 
I then invest more in early payers and nothing in late payers, after 1-2 months of this I have a core investment base of about 50-60 borrowers, and when I get an email about their listings I invest in them. once per week I may look for new borrowers. 
I was hit by investing in people in ltcGear, so in future I will be wary of going too heavily into one loan type. I hope this helps.

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This of course is just the tip of the Iceberg of my investing knowledge, so I will try to get a video together sometime this month, if there is anything in particular that any of you would like to learn about, dont hesitate to drop me a message and I will add it to my plans.

I am thinking of making a video to help people with lending techniques for both btcjam and bitlending club. They will be based on the techni...

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