--snip--
I do know that a month or 2 ago he was offering to "lend" people larger amounts of tBTC if they gave him collateral that would enable him to buy hashing power to re-mine the loaned tBTC if they didn't return the tBTC when they were finished with it:
--snip--
That offer is just as valid today as it was a couple months ago
Basically, if you're somebody i know and trust i'll lend you as much tBTC as you'd need (within reasonable limits) without collateral or interest. If i don't know you and you have a legit usecase for the tBTC i'll lend you as much as you'd need without interest but i still require enough real BTC as collateral to re-mine the tBTC in case you'd default PLUS something extra to give you an incentive to return the tBTC instead of using me as an easy way to have somebody mining tBTC for you. If you don't default you'd get the collateral back (minus transaction and escrow fees).
I haven't looked at the testnet diff in a couple of weeks, but the block reward did halve, so if you're interested in loaning tBTC as a newbie/junior member, i'll have to re-calculate the required collateral.
I know some have criticized me for asking collateral, but if i'd lend out tBTC to newbies without asking any collateral, i'd end up with an empty tBTC wallet and i could just shut down my faucet altogether. tBTC is worthless, but that doesn't mean it's free to mine, so if i loan out tBTC and you default, i need some real BTC to mine tBTC to replenish my faucet's wallet...
