[proposal] should we accept bitcoin donations for FSCI?
parmutownley Tue 12 Apr 2022 11:09AMPublicSeen by 65FSCI is trying to raise funds and we are no way near our goal yet. I propose we can also start accepting bitcoin donations for following reasons:
- bitcoin allows us to receive international payments, increasing our donator's space from national to international
- bitcoin is a little controversial but its the closest to "FOSS money" we have
- helps with donator's privacy
There are few selfhostable services we can use such as BTCPay Server: https://btcpayserver.org/
although running BTCPay server is a complete eCommerce solution and might be too expensive IF we also want to accept quick payments over The Lightning Network.
We could also just have a bitcoin address generated from a light wallet (like electrum wallet) and post it on our fundraisers. I think the core members should hold the keys to that wallet.
We should also consider some less popular but more private currencies such as Monero
Life is TetrisTue 3 May 2022 4:01PM
Just as an example of alternative pre-Patreon pre-Bitcoin acceptance of donations, I remember sites having an Amazon wishlist which patrons could fund.
a) What could be the tax status of such a wishlist in India?
b) Assuming that a shopping wishlist isn't of any use to FSCI :-) is there an equivalent to, say, let patrons fund the hosting account?
Ravi DwivediWed 1 Jun 2022 8:13AM
Reasons by autistici.org on why they do not accept bitcoins https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2013/07/8333#eng
To summarize, the list of reasons we all agreed are the following:
1 they are not really anonymous (it is stated also on their official website)
2 we pay our services in Euro or in Dollar, not in Bitcoin, for this reason we should then convert them anyway. To convert them we should be using one of these Bitcoins exchange sites which are not that transparent and who control a big amount of the total Bitcoin traffic and it’s not proven that they are any better than normal banks.
3 we feel a general hatred for Bitcoins and their financial speculations which at the moment are holding the Bitcoin market. We all have seen the trend over time of this new coin and it looked pretty much like the typical behavior of an investment subject to speculative bubbles and we do not consider this a behavior of a ‘comunitarian’ coin.
To summarize even more: bitcoins do not give us any specific advantage compared to a normal bank account and we are lazy. the real anonymous donations are made in a sealed envelope using latex gloves.
Also at this point it seems pretty clear to us that to consider Bitcoin as a “currency” is ‘a little’ improper: Bitcoin are an investment fund pump & dump done to dupe the ultra-libertarian anarco-capitalists.
In short, we find ourselves with a certain unease to participate actively in this financial game.
Ravi Dwivedi ·Mon 2 May 2022 6:46AM
Wikimedia Foundation is discontinuing accepting donations via cryptocurrency https://mastodon.social/@kiwix/108228034711808813