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

[David Gerard]

On 13 December 2013 11:43, Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.


This is probably the key point: will it be worth the resources? How do
comparable charities that accept Bitcoin do?

I'm sceptical about Bitcoin in general, but if it was worth it, then sure.

(If you have reliable payment conversion, the acceptance bit is easy.
Hardest bit is someone to supply reliable and trustworthy conversion
from Bitcoins to dollars. e.g. Mt. Gox wouldn't pass the sniff test
IMO. Some Bitcoin operations are *terrifyingly* naive, as if
financial-quality computer system reliability had never been thought
of.)


- d.