Topic: [ANN] HaoBTC launches fixed term deposit account - page 6. (Read 8571 times)

Hi,
Our pleasure to have you!
I feel that I don't have all the answers ready but will try to address your concerns as much as I can:
While at the moment we make money mostly through mining, we are exploring alternatives that can potentially generate non-mining revenue. For example, we recently launched a service allowing users (right now only Chinese banks supported) to trade bitcoins and we charge a 0.1% commission. This has generated a small but growing income.
If the mining profitability diminishes but we manage to find replacements, we will continue to operate our Banking service and pay out interest.
The interest rate is pretty much dependent on market competition and that we drop it to 0 is extremely low.
If the company fails, the plan - not sure how official it is, but the CEO suggested at one point that all partners should take jobs and pay back the debt using their future income - I personally have no objections and think all the big name investment banks should do the same.
HaoBTC pretty much operates like a fractional-reserve bank (FRB) at the moment, and like all FRBs, it works on the assumption that all depositors won't withdraw at the same time. If we run out of reserve in a bank run scenario, one alternative is to borrow from the big exchanges, which have been giving loans for about 30 percent p.a.
Are the funds somehow guaranteed? Yes and no. It is not guaranteed by the law or state institutions, because there is little to no legislation in the space - not in China and not that I am aware of. It is guaranteed by our reputation and the scrutiny of users, esp. the Chinese ones. We make the commitment to our users that as long as the company exist, we will honor our obligations - this is true for the Chinese users and foreigners alike. If some unforeseeable events struck and the worst happened, in principle we will try to pay back the debt to the best of our ability - we don't have a specific plan but will publicize it once we do.
We have been considering bringing a third-party insurer onboard, but to be honest, it is hard to find one willing to provide such service and I don't think this is likely to happen soon.

Hey Eric!

So after doing some research, I decided to entrust some BTC with HaoBTC!

I do have a couple of concerns I'd like to voice, though, publicly so others can see the answers as well:

1) If the mining business goes down or otherwise becomes unprofitable (such is the case with this largely unknown variable), would you just drop the APY to 0%? Are there any other ways you're earning money off deposits right now?

2) Are the funds somehow guaranteed? I find this hard to fathom when depositors can withdraw at any minute (meaning that the funds can't all be tied up, otherwise people couldn't all withdraw). So can you please give a bit more information on how all of this works out in terms of risk involved?

You didn't try very hard, it is literally the first link that comes up if you google "linkedin eric mu".

Eric, I cannot find your Linkedin page.

Thanks for this information.  Can you briefly describe how deposits are secured internally?  I understand the need to keep somethings closer to the vest than others, but it would ease my mind knowing that two or three digit deposits are secure.

Thanks a million!

My bio is pretty simple:
I worked seven years for a media startup called Danwei, which is an English language media website and consulting firm founded by Jeremy Goldkorn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Goldkorn ).
The company was sold to Financial Times in early 2013.
I worked at Financial Times' Beijing office for a little more than a year as a researcher and left the company in May, 2014.
I subsequently joined a few Bitcoin companies, including a brief stint at OKCoin (worked as a member of the overseas team responsible for media communications), Coinarch, an Australian exchange. HaoBTC is the third BTC company that I work for.  
I translated a few books as a hobby - still doing translation when I have time.
I am a contributor to CoinDesk and Forbes.
Can't think of anything to add.
Most info can be found on my Linkedin page.

This sounds a lot like CoinLenders or whatever it was (run by TF). We saw what happened with that one.

How public is your identity, OP? How can we verify who you are, and what you've done in the past? It's risky enough as it is. Even more so if we don't know you, .

The referral link doesn't work for "financing" for now - but I was told that eventually it will.

so far so good for me ...

hope you can use my ref http://haobtc.com/?ref=85c51c9f

thx

Got it, clear as mud now.

I always have my doubts, but I may let a little coin ride here for a bit and see what happens.

it does not matter when u deposit, it does not follow calendar month if i'm not mistaken.

it follows the date u deposit into financing.

i tried it & the system shows 6/11 deposit & matures on 7/11. put 10 btc in & get 0.1 btc for 1 month financing is what i saw.

looks like 30 days then it matures. not sure about other months though.

but my question is ... my referral bonus pays me hourly atm, but if it;s in financing then most likely i will only get the bonus

appreciate if there's anyone signing up to use my ref http://haobtc.com/?ref=85c51c9f

thx in advance

I wasn't trying to earn an hour's worth of interest.  If you read the exchange, I thought he was saying that interest was paid at the end of every calendar month and if you were not invested at the start of that month you would not receive any interest.  So, I was saying I wanted to invest one instant before the month of July begins to make sure that I earn interest for JULY (not June).  Eric has since cleared it up -- the month begins when you invest, not when the calendar rolls over.

I understand how monthly interest rates work; you didn't understand what I didn't understand. :-P

Edit: FWIW, the hourly interest is paid at the top of the hour based on what you had at the top of the previous hour.  If you invest at 5:30, you will receive no interest at 6:01.  At 7:01, you will earn one hour's worth of interest (not 1.5 hours).  At least that's what it looks like from my experience on the site.

You do not understand how monthly interest rates work.  You don't get a month's worth of interest if your money has only been there 1 hour.  You leave it there for a month, you get the monthly interest rate.

Eric,

Thanks for the neat offering, I look forward to using it.  That said, I'm concerned about the security of banking deposits--not concerning the integrity of your business, but of any unknown security vectors from outside attackers.  Can you describe how our banking or financing funds are stored?

Is there anyway we can store those funds in a multisig vault and still provide you with the capital you need while providing depositors with extra security?

Cheers!

do i still get referral bonus from my friend if he is using financing options ?

banking options is every hour he get paid interest & i get some bonus too every hour.

but banking ? wait after 1 month or whichever options he chooses & when he completes the term ?

I was not very clear in a previous post saying that a calendar month is the smallest unit.
It is slightly more nuanced than that.
If you invest in "financing" today, and you withdraw after your money with us for 31 days (depending the number of days in that specific month, this number of days can be 31, 30, 29 or 28), then you should get 12% p.a interest rate.

I would like to invest in financing on the last hour of the last day of this month so that I can make sure that I get paid for July and also don't miss out on the 8% interest between now and the end of June.  So, I would like to make a feature request for the website to allow me to specify ahead of time how many bitcoins I want to move to financing on the last minute of the month and then have the website auto move my money from "Banking" to "Financing" at the appropriate time.

That is correct.

I interpret "No interest [for mid-month investments]" to mean that if I invest today, I will earn zero interest between now and the end of the month.  Whereas, if I leave my money in the banking wallet I will earn interest hourly.

Please clarify eric@haobtc.  Thanks in advance.

No, you'd earn 1 day's worth of the higher interest if you did that, which would be silly.

If you don't need the funds for 4/5/6/7/etc. weeks, put it in the financing.  If you want liquidity, use the banking.