Topic: [ANN] BTCJam - Peer to Peer Bitcoin Lending (Read 204970 times)

What happened to it? Was there any kind of post mortem?

There were the old BitFunder scammers for BTCQuick there I liked to pull up and make mad faces at from my computer screen.

Hi
BTCJam is out of business now. You can have a look at btcpop.co, and I will be happy if you sign up via my ref in the signature :-)

Best regards

what kind identity verification will you need? can be more specific? pASsport id?

Is this site out of biz now?

The only method that has worked is secured lending using exchanges and lending to margin traders.  That said - it can still be very risky due to the potential for hacks, a flash crash or spike (and inability to liquidate positions) or insiders running off with your money.  And often the BTC lending rate has been very low (ex. 2% APR).   Recently it has been very high (notably on Poloniex) due to the alt-coin bull market.

I was a member of Bitbond for a while but never made any loans there since the lending terms were actually worse than at BTCjam, they also had many of the same scammy default artists as borrowers who became famous on BTCjam.

I have also maintained an account with BTCpop throughout their turbulent history (see here, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btcpopco-hacked-1042299 and here, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btcpopco-blatent-theivery-do-not-trust-this-site-1393297 and here, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/just-airing-some-frustration-and-some-facts-about-btcpop-1435851 for details), but I don't trust them. They still have my 0.4 BTC languishing "BTCpop collections" since January 2016, and even if BTCpop did manage somehow to collect from the Vietnamese Thief who took them I'm not sure that I would hear from them about it.

The other three you mention are unknown to me, and shall remain unknown to me  . I earn much more trading than I ever did lending, and at considerably less risk.

BTCjam R.I.P..
Let the record show that unsecured P2P lending is a failed concept.

Have little lost on JAM (about 5% of my invested amount) so i could say i was luky.

Actually bitcoin lending market offer is really poor, only available are:

- Bitbond
- Getline
- BTCpop
- Stemfund
- Xcoin

But only the first tree work better: stemfund as i wrote is not known (but i made some little profit there)  and Xcoin is not open to all country (and by using paypal as collateral is really risky).

Respect...nicely summarized!

Looks like BTCjam is finally circling the toilet. Here is a paraphrase of their blog announcement   (https://blog.btcjam.com/):

BTCJam is closing

BTCJam began with one mission: To help others while we help ourselves.

In the past four years we have serviced more than 20,600 loans in 122 countries, totaling more than 64,000 Bitcoins. We have transferred wealth from thousands of stupid investors around the world and are proud that we helped our disadvantaged and opressed borrowers screw them out of their bitcoins.

We firmly believe the words of the great P.T. Barnum that a sucker is born every minute. That said, we have made the difficult decision to close BTCJam. The heat from  Bitcoin regulatory efforts and the difficulties we face from legal challenges and investor lynch mobs around the world are simply beyond our capacity.

No new loans can be made from today onward, and if by some miracle you still have any Bitcoin left stored with us, you have until July 1, 2018 to withdraw it, if you can.

All borrowers with active loans can keep defaulting on them normally. The repayment functionality will remain available until all the loans have either reached their term and either been fully repaid or have defaulted. After that, the website will be reduced to a simpler version that will only show our middle finger, and any remaining balance will be tranferred to our new domicile in Rio de Janeiro.

We extend sincere thanks to all our suckers, borrowers, collaborators, chumps, and everyone else who believed in our dream of working together to rob lenders without borders. It’s a mission we still believe in.

Team BTCJam.

Looks like Kevin Palley is throwing in the towel  ...


I'm sorry to him go, but after everything BTCjam has (NOT...) done I totally understand his decision!

BTCJAM really can't be long for the world. No new listings in a month. Plus, I'm not too sure that doxxing debtors and encouraging people to publicly shame/contact them is legal... after all there are rules to play by when you collect a debt.

I am wondering whether BTCjam (Ovo Cosmico Inc...) will disappear with a whimper and just pull the plug on the website, or with a bang when the Venture Capitalists on Jams "World Class Investor" list (https://btcjam.com/about) initiate a feeding frenzy to recoup some their squandered cash (I don't think they will use arbitration awards from Dhami Law Firm ).

Seriously though, I doubt that Jam even has any real assets for the V.C. Sharks to go after(?). The platform has become a mausoleum for bad loans, no new loans have been posted there for a looooong time. The domain name can't be worth much after Jam stopped issuing loans to U.S. borrowers, and New York State rejected their bit license application (source: http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/new-york-state-department-of-financial-65574/). Now BTCjam has something close to zero goodwill or future left in the English speaking part of the planet. The BTCjam corporate domicile address in San Francisco's pricey financial district was probably rented, so there would be no property to go after.

It would not surprise me one bit if Ovo Cósmico LTDA in Brazil turns out to be a holding company for the U.S. Ovo Cosmico Inc, and corporate money was already funneled offshore. Since Jam is privately funded they are not required to disclose very much about themselves publicly. From Google -

https://pitchbook.com/profiles/ovo-cosmico-profile-investors-funding-valuation-and-analysis
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapid=249167836

Is there anyone here with a law background that has insight into how Jam might be liquidated, and what legal status (if any..) the hundreds of notes/delinquent loans on the website would have?

What Tulkas, you still have support staff over there? Figured all your employees would have fucked off by now...aren't you finished now, close this thread and bury whats left of BTCJam in the ground you drove it into.

So say a Tor user got a verified account through the black market (whether it was the account or just the methods of verifying it), is there any kind of insurance offered by BTCJam?

Mauriek, as our support have explained, your account had the email changed by using our "change email" feature that requires the user to have access to the previous email to complete the process.

We also offer 2FA but it was not enabled.

We cannot prevent an attacker if the account is not properly secured and the attacker has access to the users email, if you want extra security please enable 2FA.

I need some suggestion here guys, thank you

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1708176.new#new

Im sorry to hear that, it was never happened to me when i was using the service although im no longer using it after many complaints about scammers. That was the last time i used the widthraw and unlikely to what is happening to you i only got deducted 0.0005 for the fee. If its a new modus let us see.

@Pro Gamers, not what I am saying here. I understand the basic math of allocating a network fee, what is happening here is as follows:

Let's say I have an account balance of .0110. I click the withdrawal button and the dialogue comes up with the information that of my .0110 account balance, .0105 is able to be withdrawn, the remaining .0005 is used to cover the network fee. The dialogue also explicitly says that BTCJam does not have a service fee for withdrawals, .0005 is only to cover the network fees. It does not allow me to enter .0110 and then make the deduction, it only allows me to enter the maximum allowable amount as displayed in the dialog box at .0105.

When I enter .0105 in the withdrawal screen and click send I discover that the .0005 is actually removed from the transfer amount, leaving the actual transfer amount of .01. 0005 remains in my account; this essentially means there is no practical way to transfer the full balance of the account as this .0005 is always retained by BTCJam.

Widthrawal fee is 0.0005 of you want to widthraw 0.01 in full you have to add 0.0005 for the fee so it should be 0.0105 to avoid charging from your desired amount.

Dear Tulkas,

Everytime I make a withdrawal the system rightly says that I must hold back .0005 for the network fee. This is acceptable and understood from the terms of service. However, when the transfer is sent it deducts an additional .0005 from the desired transfer amount and then leaves the already allocated .0005 account balance hanging in the account.

When I wish to withdraw .01 from my account I wish to withdraw the full .01 from my account, not .0095 as occurs now.

Please fix this Problem. I am no longer an active user on Jam and wish to eventually close out my account once all of my Notes are sold. Leaving even a few Cents worth of Bitcoin in my account on your site just pisses me off in the end.

Please confirm when this problem has been fixed.