Mar 14, 2019
"AXIS BTC トークジャム： 辻庸介さん" by Takram
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"AXIS BTC トークジャム： 辻庸介さん" by Takram
Co-post with BTCjam: BTCjam featured in Valor Econômico, the largest financial newspaper in Brazil
Co-post with BTCjam: BTCjam featured in Valor Econômico, the largest financial newspaper in Brazil
I am re-posting here today a BTCjam post depicting that their website featured in on important Brazilian economic newspaper:
Bitcoins making the radar of Brazilian entrepreneurs
I took the opportunity to also post the video below that features a Spanish language BTCjam explanatory lecture and will be easy to a Portuguese or Spanish audience in Latin America.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
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New Post has been published on Bitcoin:Views
Bitcoin Foundation's Patrick Murck to Advise Lending Network BTCJam
17 February 2015 | Yessi Bello Perez | Coindesk.com
Patrick Murck, executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, has joined the board of advisors of BTCJam – a bitcoin-powered peer-to-peer lending network.
Celso Pitta, BTCJam‘s CEO, said: “Patrick’s legal expertise and bitcoin knowledge are absolutely essential to our mission of expanding access to fairly priced credit everywhere”.
Murck, who took over as executive director of the foundation following Jon Matonis’ resignation last October, has “an impressive legal background” and was recently named one of America’s Top 50 Outstanding General Counsels by the National Law Journal.
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5 Ways Peer-to-Peer Lending Creates ROI for Investors
Peer-to-peer lending is a relatively new concept that helps borrowers find great deals on loans. In order to finance these types of loans, peer-to-peer lending relies on individual investors who fund each loan in small amounts.
Source: Shutterstock
This method of lending is fast and efficient and therefore often lowers the cost of a loan for borrowers, as well as providing a stable rate of return for investors.
Why does peer-to-peer lending offer a higher ROI compared to other investment methods? Let’s take a look at 5 compelling reasons why this form of lending is beneficial not just to borrowers but also for the investors who back these loans.
A Proven Model
Ever since Lending Club and Prosper were founded in the United States in 2006, the industry for peer-to-peer lending has been booming.
And these stalwarts have been originating more loans than ever before. Here is the US market’s performance over time:
Source: Crowdfundinsider
Peer-to-peer lending is now originating over $500 million in loans per month, led by Lending Club. That’s impressive for an industry basically founded only eight years ago, and shows that demand is on the rise with no sign of slowing down.
An Avenue for Specific Borrowing
Whether it’s paying down debt or financing bitcoin miners, peer-to-peer lending allows borrowers to get a loan for things traditional lenders might be wary of.
In fact, debt consolidation loans are one of the most popular peer-to-peer lending loans according to Prosper, one of the lender leaders in this industry.
Source: CreditCards.com
And trying to get a loan from a bank or other traditional lender for a bitcoin miner would be very difficult unless a borrower could provide a specific business case for doing so.
The bottom line is that peer-to-peer lending allows individual investors to be creative in deciding what types of loans to fund for borrowers.
Spreading out the Risk
Those who invest in peer-to-peer loans are able to diversify and therefore spread out risk by funding many different loans.
It’s important to understand that borrowers sometimes don’t pay back loans, known as a default. It’s something that cannot be avoided in the industry, but by diversifying investments in many different loans, investor risk can be reduced.
Source: LendingMemo
Data culled from Lending Club shows that investors placing funds in many different loans are able to realize a return that is much better than a high yield savings account, and sometimes even better than that of a mutual fund.
Helping Borrowers with Not So Perfect Credit
Many borrowers on peer-to-peer lending sites are looking for access to low interest rates while often not having a perfect credit score.
This is one of the reasons peer-to-peer lending has become so popular: It can be easier to get a loan on a peer-to-peer marketplace than going to a bank. For some borrowers, alternatives such as payday loans may levy interest rates at 15%+ p/m, plus fees.
Prosper credit scores in 2013. Source: Orchard
The average credit scores in the 660-670 range on Prosper’s lending marketplace constitute what credit scoring systems would consider “good” borrowers. This is in between the lower-end “fair” and the upper “excellent” tier of borrowers through the FICO scoring system.
Cheaper for Borrowers, Good for Investors
Because banks that lend out money are complex organizations, they have very high overhead in operating costs. Also, banks have to comply with more regulations than peer-to-peer marketplaces.
Running a bank is expensive, and this cost is passed on to borrowers in the form of pricey fees, high standards for loan approval and long lead times.
Source: Foundation Capital
Lending marketplaces are a faster and less expensive proposition for everyone involved. The whole process is simpler when compared to what the banking industry must do to lend people money and is usually (almost) fully online based.
Where BTCJam Stands
BTCJam is a unique peer-to-peer lender in several different ways.
By utilizing an uniques in-house credit scoring system, we can help anyone obtain a loan when a borrower supplies us with certain information – instantly creating a credit profile.
We are able to leverage the low costs of capital in the developed world with the high costs of borrowing in many countries. Because of this global advantage, we can return to investors a better rate of return and provide more affordable loans for people in developing countries.
Because we use the digital currency bitcoin as a transaction protocol, we can connect borrowers and investors globally - A borrower can convert a loan and investors can convert their profit into the local currency whenever necessary.
These factors are key reasons why we are able to provide investors great returns.
Here’s how to learn more about investing in bitcoin loans on BTCJam’s marketplace.
Opportunities for Bitcoin in Indonesia
In 2005 I spent three months in Jakarta, Indonesia, to teach at a school for disadvantaged children. The school, established by the Dilts Foundation, provides among other things, education to street kids and other children who do not have access to the traditional educational system.
The program I participated in was called ‘Children of Tomorrow’, and besides teaching the children English, our mission was to provide them the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial and leadership skills to enable positive change and advancement.
It was a truly unique and life-changing experience. I was overwhelmed by the happiness of the local people, although their lives were so challenging and touched by their generosity despite the limited resources they had. I realized that by growing up in developed countries I took for granted things like running water, a toilet, and three meals a day.
Same as for the banking and other financial services: these children and their families, like almost 80% of the population in Indonesia, had never been into a bank, let alone have a bank account. There are various reasons for the high percentage of un(der)banked in Indonesia.
Firstly, Indonesia is a cash-economy. It is part of the culture to receive, spend and save money in cash; they live by the motto ‘cash is King’.
Another important motive is that for many people financial services are too expensive. With an average monthly income of $200, the disposable resources are limited and financial services are not their biggest priority. Indonesia is also an archipelago of more than 13,000 islands. On most islands the banking infrastructure is barely developed since it is not profitable for banks to establish branches, ATMs, and other services. Which leaves a significant part of the population without access to a bank.
A statement often made is that bitcoin can change and improve lives of the un(der) banked. These people have a need for a service that facilitates small transactions in a cost effective manner. Additionally, a solution to hold value safely through a provider they trust.
Although a vast majority of the un(der)banked is not very tech savvy and does not have easy access to internet, many have a mobile phone. For example in Indonesia 84% of the population owns a mobile phone and by developing mobile solutions using the bitcoin protocol, financial services will suddenly become very accessible for these people.
In the last months bitcoin has slowly, but steadily been getting traction in Indonesia. In December 2013, the first bitcoin exchange opened, bitcoin.co.id, there are several entrepreneurs developing bitcoin applications and services for the first merchants that started accepting bitcoin.
Also, BTCJam has seen a tremendous growth of users from Indonesia: more than 1000% in the last three months! Most users from Indonesia on BTCJam are borrowers who take out loans for business activities, some related to bitcoin. Borrowers use loans to buy mining hardware or to trade on LocalBitcoins. These BTCJam users are contributing to the bitcoin ecosystem in Indonesia and providing liquidity to the local market.
The opportunities for bitcoin in Indonesia are immense: with a population of 240 million, where 80% is un(der)banked, bitcoin can have a significant impact on the lives of at least 190 million people. I believe that bitcoin can also increase the opportunities of the ‘Children of Tomorrow’ that I taught at the Dilts Foundation.
- Isabelle de Clercq
Untangling Peer-To-Peer Lending, Crowdfunding, and Microlending
In my previous post, I provided a short overview of the evolution of the lending space and the role of banks herein. Over the past years, especially as a result of the financial crisis and the arising regulations, banks pulled back from issuing loans. This paved the way for alternative financing solutions, like Peer-to-Peer Lending, Crowdfunding and Microlending.
The most significant similarity between these three services is that there is no involvement of the traditional financial institutions. In this post I will discuss their most important features, which market they serve and their key differences.
Peer-to-Peer Lending
The core concept of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending is a group of investors lending to one person or business, without the interference of traditional financial institutions. Traditionally the investors are individuals who are not related to and do not know the borrower. The development of the Internet has enabled this new form of lending; an online marketplace facilitates the transaction.
An interesting trend in the P2P Lending space is the increased participation of institutional investors and even banks. P2P Lending companies can operate more efficiently thanks to the use of new technologies and less overhead, therefore making these marketplaces very interesting for both borrowers and investors. According to Charles Moldow, partner at Foundation Capital, the P2P Lending Platforms have 400 basis points advantage compared to traditional banks.
Notable players in this field are Zopa, located and operating in the UK and the first P2P Lending Platform and LendingClub & Prosper, who service the US market. Funding Circle and OnDeck facilitate small business loans through their marketplace.
A new and truly unique P2P Lending company is BTCJam. By using bitcoin as a transaction protocol and a global credit-scoring model, BTCJam is the only P2P lending company that operates worldwide.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is based on the same principle as P2P Lending; funding takes place by a group of investors. But there are significant differences between the two.
Firstly, Crowdfunding is typically used for specific projects and/or ideas and not for (personal) loans. The second distinct difference is that investors who contribute to a project do not get interest; instead they’ll receive a reward, special perks or gifts, like the first release of the album or the product they supported.
A new development within the Crowdfunding industry is the so-called Equity-Based Crowdfunding: as a reward investors receive unlisted shares of a company. Equity Crowdfunding has been a popular way of raising capital for companies in Europe and Australia for a couple of years. In the United States Equity Crowdfunding is only accessible for accredited investors, but this could change soon based on the JOBS Act. This is an exciting development for investors and also start-up entrepreneurs as this expands their possibilities of raising capital.
A well-known Crowdfunding platform is Kickstarter; people have pledged $1 billion, funding 65,000 projects. Seedrs is an Equity Crowdfunding marketplace that operates throughout Europe.
Microlending
The origin and main goal of Microlending is financing poverty-related issues and reaching the underbanked community. The loan amount is usually very small and the purpose can be either personal, for example financing medical bills, or business related, like buying cattle.
In P2P Lending and Crowdfunding there are multiple investors contributing to the loan, whereas with Microlending you often see that (also) the borrowers team up. Loans are provided to a group of people, who will vouch for each other, therefore minimizing the risk of default.
The first Microlending initiatives did not have profitability as a driver, but over the years some Microlending institutions have argued that doing good shouldn’t stand in the way of making profit. Opinions remain divided on this subject.
Grameen Bank is one of the first and leading Microcredit organizations, and besides Microlending it also offers other financial services. Kiva created an online marketplace to connect investors with borrowers in developing countries. Kiva works with local field partners who assess, distribute and monitor the loans.
In the chart below I summarized the characteristics of the three financing solutions. The alternatives to traditional banking loans all serve a different market and it is strongly recommended to research what solution suits your needs.
- Isabelle de Clercq
Industrial Bitcoin Mine Employee Disappears After $190K in Alleged Theft, Fraud
Industrial Bitcoin Mine Employee Disappears After $190K in Alleged Theft, Fraud
A man operating under an assumed name has been accused of stealing bitcoin and bitcoin mining equipment from a Florida-based industrial mining facility and defrauding investors on a popular bitcoin lending platform.
The alleged perpetrator worked under the name Jon Simms, acting as both an independent bitcoin buyer and seller and a professional mining specialist for Digital Mining Investments.…
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BTCJam Hires New Chief Product Officer
We are happy to announce that Gustavo Guida is joining BTCJam as Chief Product Officer. Gustavo is a seasoned entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience running marketplaces.
In 1999, months after graduating in Economics, Gustavo co-founded Bondfaro, a price comparison company in Brazil, where he worked as CPO. In 2006 the company merged with Buscape, creating one of the largest e-commerce players in Latina America. Gustavo was Buscape’s Product Senior Vice-President and managed Customer Service and the Product pipeline for the company that had back then over 10 million monthly unique visitors and was servicing millions of dollars in transactions per month. With offices in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Mexico City and Buenos Aires, the company was finally sold to Naspers in 2009.
After working briefly at Naspers and investing in a few startups, Gustavo co-founded the medical booking platform HelpSaude.com. The company recently merged with NetCom, turning the resulting company the absolute leader in medical bookings in Brazil. Gustavo moved to the Board of Directors and is still a shareholder and a believer of the company.
At BTCJam, as CPO, Gustavo will be mainly responsible for Product Design and Customer Service. He will work remotely from Rio de Janeiro and will move to San Francisco soon to work at our SOMA office.
“Since my first contact with BTCJam, I became fascinated with its business model. By using bitcoin protocol, BTCJam can connect investors and borrowers from all over the world. The result is empowerment of borrowers to fulfill their needs at the same time that investors are able to get excellent returns. I am very excited to join BTCJam and help the company to revolutionize finance in a global scale!” - said Gustavo.
By the way, we are hiring! Take a look at the opening positions we have.