Market Discussions

Hello everyone,

I've been looking around MD for a couple days and I've noticed that bonds seem to be one of the primary uses of this forum. As an aspiring trader looking for working capital, the idea of multiplying my working capital through bonds is very appealing to me.

Unfortunately, as a new re-subscriber with no forum presence my options are limited. I don't have any big ticket items that could be used for collateral and it's hard to justify an uncollateralized loan to an outsider.

I feel that I can't be alone, so my question is this: to what extent could the bond market use a credit rating system?

It seems to me that having a centralized system might drastically improve the efficiency of bonds by freeing up more capital and items for use. It could also potentially drastically reduce the chance of default on uncollateralized loans. Any player with a history of borrowing would be scored in much the same way FICO scores work.

This would require reporting from creditors, but I think making credit checks dependent on credit reporting would be a strong incentive to force people to report.

Any thoughts?

That makes sense, but how exactly does that system incorporate new people? It seems that system works well for large loans between a few select players, but I'm thinking about a system that could scale down to even small loans to newer players. It might also attract new lenders who aren't regular MD or even forum users.

Despite its inherent grumpiness, the forum is always ready to embrace new people. Read through the full posting history of Pileasure Hub, therein lies your answer.
I myself started with uncollateralised loans in 2009, and even at that time it was also said that a newcomer could not break the barriers of skepticism.

Thanks for the responses guys. Presented with a unified front, I guess I am convinced.

I am a regular user of enough online forums that I know these kind of "reinventing the wheel" posts from noobies always make them sound a bit wet behind the ears. Thanks for putting up.

Thanks for the links as well- I guess creating a bond request may be one of my next steps (likely after some continued forum presence).

There have been MD regulars in the past that offered a service somewhat similar to what you asked about. Vaerah aka VV used to do an auditing service, though he is not active now that I know of. He would audit someone based on their API and look at skills, market trading history, assess the credibility of whatever business plan they had and review posting history and anything else that he thought was relevant.

Part of this was a negative assessment, red flags like claiming to be an uber market trader but having no wallet history of trading or trade skills would be quite a large red flag.

Part of it was a positive assessment, does their business plan hold up.

Since VV left active posting in here it has mostly been as people have stated above where the regulars will look at posts and critique them.

You can get a loan if you have collateral as you know now. One option you have is to build up some capital, say a few bill. then buy something or a basket of items you believe will increase over the short term, say some pirate cruisers or whatever, then offer that as collateral, you get your isk back, invest it in your trading/manufacturing venture and hopefully the collateral will have increased in value when you come to pay back the loan.

There is that dogma again - "I will make a presence on the MD forum and then I will present a loan because that is what they do there when they have been around long enough". It actually annoys me that we have this reputation. It smells of cameraderie, roleplaying and social engineering. (this rant has nothing to do with you, OP).

What people should be saying to themselves is "I absolutely need a pile of ISK to launch my big project and I am going to this MD place and demand that they give me ISK to spend on it".
Check the very recent bond from Charlinda, an absolute unknown on MD with a good project.

What you should do, OP, is to trade with what money you have, and then present a bond offer at any time you feel it prudent. Bring proof that you are actually trading, be generous with the %, and you will get (some) money.

I always enjoy your Machiavellian mindset, Sabriz. That scenario sounds plausible, but the number of people willing and capable to invest the time and effort into such a scam is small. Does anyone have links to some elaborate scams like this in the past?

On another note, I could envision a third party tool which could serve as a robotic replacement for VV's service. Someone could program an open-source web app that lets users enter their API key and have it run automatic validation of many different aspects of their account. It could verify things like trading activity, skill-point distribution, wealth, and so forth. It runs its calculations, generates a publicly-viewable report, and deletes the API key and private information, such as names of items traded.

Such a program would take effort to build at first but would be highly efficient. A large problem with 3rd parties is that they take up valuable human time to do their work for each transaction or assessment. This program could charge a tiny fee if the developer wanted some compensation for their effort. It could also offer a superior service to human-based alternatives by doing its calculations free from human eyes. The things human 3rd parties can view with a full API key is too much for some people.

Lastly, by making the source code available, the integrity of the program would be subject to public evaluation. A weak link in this approach is that for the reports to carry any weight, users must trust the developer to run the exact version to match the published source code, rather than a customized version granting them the ability to spy on the details of the report or falsify data to support scammers.

Hold on a minute, if I have x amount of ISK to invest, how am I any less credible than say, Bad Tobby?*



*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

I don't know about credit history but if you want a loan bond you can use use a profit tracker and provide access to potential investors or use collateral.

A solid business plan is also a good start i.e. something like:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=442537&find=unread

I've never really believed the whole API secret stealing traders, by the time they've set up something that can successful harvest enough API keys to get any decent info they've already spent hundred of hours that could've been used to earn ISK, and if the tool is that popular you can probably monetize it for less extra effort than copying someone else's trades. There's more than just knowing what someone else has traded and I think anyone that does want to trade will do it without that info.