Topic: BitTontine - old principles for a modern age (Read 2732 times)

Logging in every day would be a pain in the butt.

I think logging in once a month and using biometric identification would be a good start to prevent cheating

How about making necessary contition - to send a message everyday? It'll make tontine harder and profitable.

And is it possible to make a program, that will automatize this participant-verification-process and, in fact, give a huge advantage to it's inventor? Can someone cheat your system in that way?

Likely alt account of phisher

 

The trick is your coins & fiat are no used to you when you are gone.

...but if you spend them too quickly now then.....

A Tontine (Bitcoin or fiat) solves the problem

i always knew i was odd, but now i know im not alone! this entire idea is just really weird and pleasant at the same time!

Anyone holding more than a few bitcoins technically has a price on their head also. 

I think the media stories about tontine murders are just for theatre. If we follow that logic, once a Last Will and Testament  is written, everyone in your family becomes a potential murderer. 

The solution anyway is to use cryptography to protect the identity of the members of the Tontines and even better, when the number of members in the pool falls below, let's say 100, then fix the distributions.

This means that way before there's any practical incentive for foul play to kick in, you have already even removed the incentive 

Your word is my command. Watch this space

Tontines are forbidden in many countries, and there's a reason for that. Many assassinations were committed among tontines' members.

I am sure no one wants to put a price on their own head.

Hmm I'm agree with you you can do this if you want because everybody will become your side so come on do it if you want something then do it.

I'm with you galambo.

If you take the original Tontine formula, we can run it like this:

HODLERs don't want to sell because...well because these things could be worth a million each one day.

But if you never sell, how can you ever enjoy your cryptomillions? (and not risk taking them to the grave)

Solution: Everyone puts some of their bitcoins into a BTC Tontine which will only start paying out in 10 years.

For the next 10 years you can spend some (or all) of your remaining coins.

In 10 years time, the Tontine starts making monthly BTC distributions spread across the surviving members.

Year by year the number of members drops due to wars, zika, ebola as well as the lethal effects of refreshing coinmarketcap every 10 seconds.

This means that in addition to the growing value of bitcoin, each surviving member gets an increasingly larger share of the monthly BTC distributions.

I'd like to give support to an underrated bitcoin gambling concept. Three cheers for the Bitcoin Tontine. But please, run it in the old way, till death do the participants part.

People may forget to reply on time, be occupied otherwise at the time of the deadline, or fail to fill in the captcha multiple times. A five minute window isn't very wide, especially if a pool can run for multiple months.

I have to admit, this is the first time (that I am aware of, at least) a tontine is run with these specific conditions. In a way, this is a test run of sorts. Some pioneering and experimenting is to be expected; if it turns out there is no drop-out rate under these conditions, future iterations will see potential changes. (Musical BitChairs, perhaps?  )

Since presumably none of the people involved are going to die, why would anyone not send the message to keep active?

Suddendly, the forum gets DDoS'd right after someone confirms..

Thank you for your interest. I'm currently working on a way to automate the process, but unfortunately I'm not the best PHP programmer. It would be irresponsible of me to launch a website with known exploits, so I am doing a 'dry run' first to see if there even exists any interest for BitTontine on this website. If it proves popular enough, I'll release an automated secured version.


Deadlines are always inflexible, so if the site is inaccessible for the entire duration of the notification period, the tontine immediately stops and all 'survivors' of the previous deadline are declared winners. If one person manages to make a submission before the site drops out, then that one person is the winner. I hope this answers your question.

What happens when the forum is down, and hence no one can post a message?

I've thought of this idea before. Probably should make a snazzy site and automate it

I'll put a few bitcoins in if there's any other interest.

BitTontine is a new investment plan open to all members of BitCoinTalk. It follows the same mechanics as historical tontines, but updates them to the modern age.

An introduction

How a tontine works is best described by this short summary taken from Wikipedia:

A tontine is an investment plan for raising capital, devised in the 17th century and relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th. It combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each subscriber pays an agreed sum into the fund, and thereafter receives an annuity. As members die, their shares devolve to the other participants, and so the value of each annuity increases. On the death of the last member, the scheme is wound up. In a variant, which has provided the plot device for most fictional versions, on the death of the penultimate member the capital passes to the last survivor.

BitTontine differs from traditional tontines in a number of ways.

* Most notably, instead of running for the duration of a lifetime, it only runs for a set duration. (On the scale of weeks/months).
* Rather than waiting for members in a pool to die, there are a set number of weekly 'payment deadlines'. Such a deadline is a date and timeframe (example: 2nd march, 10:00 - 10:05 PM). All members of the pool must contact BitTontine via personal message within this set timeframe, otherwise they forfeit their continued participation. Anyone who responds within the timeframe is given a weekly 'annuity'.
* Unlike traditional tontines, except for a pre-determined minimum buy-in, the initial investment can be any amount of BTC. The weekly pay-out depends in part on the amount of BTC initially invested.
* Instead of the funds going to a 'final survivor', there can be multiple winners. Because a tontine runs for a set period of time, several people may remain who all win.

An example

Alice, Bob, Caroline and Dennis all enter a 1000 BTC tontine. These are their initial investments:

Alice	200 BTC
Bob	250 BTC
Caroline	300 BTC
Dennis	250 BTC

The first payment deadline draws near, and everyone manages to send in their notification at the right time. The interest on the pool is 1%, and as a result, every person gets their fair share of the 10 BTC profit. Alice gets 2, Bob gets 2.5, Caroline gets 3, and Dennis 2.5.

Another week goes by and everyone sends in their notification again. Except Alice, who forgets to do so.Only Bob, Caroline and Dennis get a payout on the 1% interest. (Bob: (250/800)*10 BTC, Caroline: (300/800)*10 BTC, Dennis: (250/800)*10 BTC).

This process repeats itself several weeks, and the final deadline draws near. Only Bob and Caroline send in the notification in time, and the entire pool of 1000 BTC is split amongst them according to their stake in active shares. Bob gets (250/550)*1000 BTC, and Caroline gets (300/550)*1000 BTC.

Questions
Q. When will the deadlines be determined? How long is a typical timeframe?
A. Deadlines are determined when a single pool has reached its funding goal. Timeframes are five minutes long.

Q. What happens if, at the final deadline, nobody manages to send out a notification in time?
A. In that case, the pool is split amongst the last surviving group. For example, if only Bob and Caroline remain and both fail to send out a notification for the next deadline, the pool is still split amongst them.

Q. Can I sell off my shares in a tontine to someone else?
A. Yes. When you enroll in the tontine, you will be given a certificate that notes the number of shares you have, a 15 character public key, and a 35 character private key. If you have a potential buyer, you can send him the public key. Your buyer can then contact BitTontine to verify that the certificate is indeed legitimate. When you complete the sale, both the seller and buyer should contact BitTontine. The seller's data is removed from the tontine records and the buyer is issued a new certificate, with a new private key.

BitTontine is not responsible for any transactions between shareholders and potential buyers.

Q. Can I partially sell of shares?
A. Yes. For example, if you have a share of 200 BTC and wish to sell 10 BTC, your buyer will get a certificate worth 10 BTC and you will get a new certificate for 190 BTC.

Q. What does the private key do?
A. It is used for security and verification purposes. If you wish to change the address to which payments should be made, you need to provide the private key. It goes without saying that the private key should never be shared with anyone.

Q. How can you guarantee a weekly 1% interest rate?
A. BitTontine invests its assets in a variety of ways, most notably through ForEx and speculation in precious metals. If more than 1% of interest is made, that money is added to the pool.

Q. So, what's in it for you?
A. BitTontine takes a 5% fee from the final pay-out. So the final pool isn't completely 1000 BTC, but 950 BTC.

Available pools
The following pools are currently open for enrollment. A pool will not run until it has reached its funding goal, at which time the pool's deadlines will also be determined. If you want to enroll, send me a PM stating the name of the pool and the number of shares you wish to buy and send the appropriate amount of BitCoins to the following address:

1GDTDgfqqc5YRj3VXaB6Gr1HG83UFALKaC

Once you sign up, your name and the number of shares you have in a pool are listed on this page. If you prefer to remain anonymous, please say so in your PM.

Pool A

Current funding	0/100 BTC
Current number of participants	0
Minimum buy-in	1 BTC
Current run-time	6 weeks
Current deadline	-

                -
List of enrolled people:


Pool B

Current funding	0/1000 BTC
Current number of participants	0
Minimum buy-in	5 BTC
Current run-time	18 weeks
Current deadline	-

                -
List of enrolled people:


In case you have any questions, feel free to post them in this thread or send a PM. They will be answered in a timely manner.