[Wikimedia-l] Let's accept Bitcoin as a donation method

[Steven Walling]

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 8:17 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:

> As Peter just said, there is no risk if WMF converts bitcoin donations to
> USD immediately.
>

Uh... except that because Bitcoin is not a regulated currency, it's value
has the potential to fluctuate wildly, and seems to have done so since it
attracts speculators of all crazy sorts. Seems pretty fuckin risky to me.

Who's to say if the work involved in accepting bitcoins, monitoring
transactions, converting them, etc. will be worth the actual donations we
receive in bitcoin? Developing and maintaining payments systems doesn't
come for free. Fundraising and finance staff at WMF work extremely hard to
keep these systems running smoothly, and I for one don't think it's worth
adding yet another potential system to build/maintain just to placate
bitcoin devotees who want us to help promote their libertarian fantasy
project.