P2P Bitcoin Lending App CredibleFriends Goes BnkToTheFuture

Peer-to-peer bitcoin lending platform CredibleFriends has successfully pitched on BnkToTheFuture, where it has already raised $51,000 or 20% of its funding goal.

Also read: Why PayPal’s Venmo is Beating Bitcoin in P2P Payments

P2P Lending ‘Ready for Version 2’

CredibleFriends, which allows friends to lend each other money based on trust and aims to spread bitcoin use among lay consumers, is aiming to raise $250,000 USD by July 15.

“Bitcoin has now reached a critical mass where it can play its role in Peer to Peer Lending Version 2 where the entire process can be automated without the need for the Peer to Peer Lending platform in the middle,” BnkToTheFuture CEO Simon Dixon told Bitcoin.com, adding:

We invested as we feel peer to peer lending is ready to move to version 2 with years of learning behind the market now.

CredibleFriends differentiates itself from existing Bitcoin loans services such as BTCJam in that it does not actually offer loans itself, but uses existing bonds between friends in order to demonstrate the power of Bitcoin as a transacting alternative.

Users are able to set credit limits for individual friends, who can spend BTC online or even in person by ordering an associated credit card. The credit card represents the first peer-to-peer Bitcoin card ever produced.

“CredibleFriends has developed a very instructing model that utilizes Bitcoin and Peer to Peer Lending to enable disruption in the credit card market in a fully inclusive way,” Dixon added. “We are really excited to see what our investors think of the Credible Friends App and to see if they want to co-invest with us.”

CredibleFriends Eyes P2P Market

The platform was launched only at the end of April, but is already attracting investor attention.

CredibleFriends CEO Zach Doty says:

Bitcoin is potentially the most disruptive technology on the planet, and it’s going to disrupt p2p lending in a big way. It is global, open and permissionless. With programmable money we can enable entirely new forms of p2p lending. For example, by using multi-signature wallets, we were able to design CredibleFriends so that we never hold custody of the user’s bitcoins.

Bitcoin is ripe for infiltrating the growing P2P credit market, which it seems is ripe for disruption. A similar scheme to CredibleFriends which uses fiat currency, Venmo, is dogged by its reliance on PayPal to process transactions.

PayPal is itself beset by problems and poor value-for-money, and most recently was banned from operating in Turkey altogether over sudden regulatory uncertainty.

“Investors are able to get a better return by playing the role of the bank and technology enables them to do it without a bank,” Dixon added.

What do you think about the potential of trust-based Bitcoin P2P lending? Get involved in the comments below.

Images courtesy of CredibleFriends, simondixon.org, shutterstock