Will Bisq start supporting "lending" and "borrowing" of Bitcoin?

(I asked this question a week ago, but it was mysteriously deleted, apparently due to some “technical glitch” with this forum. In a bizarre coincidence, I did not save the “draft” to simply be able to re-post it, even though I always normally do that, so this is a rewritten/shorter version.)

Will Bisq start supporting the ability to “lend out” and “borrow” Bitcoin? Like a new tab in the GUI called “Lending & Borrowing” or something?

For somebody like myself, who has zero fiat money left, it would be great to be able to make more Bitcoin by lending out existing coins risk-free.

I know of “Hodl Hodl”, but that centralized website is utterly broken. Registration of an account is impossible (it just reloads the same form without explanation after half an hour of feeding Google with data through their reCAPTCHA harassments). Bisq, on the other hand, is a decentralized application. The only one in existence, in fact, in spite of all the fake scams that call themselves “defi” or “decentralized” but aren’t actually so at all.

I imagine that it would be accomplished with a “multisig” smart contract thing, so that I don’t give up full control of my coins, and the other person can’t just run away with them and never return/respond again. How exactly this is to work, I am foggy about, but this is how “Hodl Hodl” allegedly works according to the one-hour podcast interview I listened to a week ago and which got me really excited about this. (Until I actually tried to use their service, which doesn’t even list Bitcoin as a supported currency.)

To avoid scams, maybe you can make it so that only “established traders” are able to use this service. It certainly would take a lot of thinking and working, but I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think that the Bisq developers are smart enough for it.

I imagine that there is a list of offers to borrow Bitcoin, and I accept one of them. Once the contract starts, it goes on for a specified number of time units, and when that time is up, I am guaranteed to get the amount back. Plus interest every “smaller time unit”, such as weekly or daily or whatever makes the most sense, perhaps even as BSQ if I so choose. Of course, the person borrowing the Bitcoins from me can repay earlier than the fixed deadline, if he is able to. Then perhaps I get a lump-sum of the remaining interest.

All of this would be highly automatic and essentially enable any Bisq user with Bitcoin to get an income of some kind of crypto currency… perhaps even Bitcoin, although then it probably has to be paid out in bulk in the end due to the transaction fees.

Yes, I know it’s much easier said than done, but if that centralized service can do it successfully, so can Bisq. I’m confident that the Bisq developers would figure out a way to minimize the risk of fraud, and if it does happen, have some kind of system in place to at least guarantee that the lender gets their money back.

Maybe it’s required by law or something, but preferably, I wouldn’t even have to give up my name to the person who borrows money from me, and I wouldn’t need to know theirs, or even what they intend to use the money for. (I’d probably rather not know, and if they are going to scam me, they wouldn’t state the true reason anyway.)

Perhaps I’m not the first person to suggest this, but I didn’t find anyone else suggesting it.

To me, this is not just a dream but the “logical goal” of all of this. To be able to have software running that actually makes money, in a honest, safe way, providing actual value to strangers and knowing that it will result in nothing but my funds being “locked up” for a while – never that I risk losing them forever. I really hope that this is already being worked on! If not, does it not sound reasonable?

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Hi @SomeBisqUser thanks for posting again.

I think lending / borrowing would be useful. There are no plans to do so but it has been discussed a couple of times I am aware of on GitHub:

I took a look at Loans at Hodl Hodl yesterday after listening the CEO podcast interview, but an not keen on the centralization that still exists on the platform. The fact their is even a CEO and essentially profits go to Hodl Hodl. At least with Bisq any profits would be distributed to the DAO.

I think the decentralized nature of Bisq would be good for loans.

I agree that the use of the existing multi-sig already has most of the features needed.

I think the multi-sig and security deposit alone would be enough to deter scammers and open up the service to anyone with the collateral to use it.

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I hope I don’t sound rude, and I don’t mean this toward you in any way, but how come there’s so little activity/enthusiasm around Bisq when it’s such a fantastic thing? You’d think this would be an absolutely massively popular thing, especially now with the exploding Bitcoin price. I love it and will keep using it, but I just wonder why it seems so obscure?

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It is not rude at all.

I think there is quite a lot of activity / enthusiasm around Bisq based on it’s current userbase.

I agree based on the size of the whole BTC / Crypto userbase Bisq is thoroughly under-represented.

I think this says more about how the majority of people have little to no concerns about privacy and are happy with the convenience that centralized exchanges offer.

Regulations in most countries are fairly accepting of the public using centralized exchanges, and buying, selling, receiving and exchanging crypto easily, freely and with little regard for any reporting.

I think when the above is no longer possible that is when your will see what is now an ‘obscure’ service used by people that understand the need for privacy become a lot more mainstream.

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