[Qgis-psc] Bitcoins

[Benedict Holland]

I would highly advise against using Bitcoin. It is a pyramid scheme with
no guarantee or store of value. It is too tempting to try to hold onto the
coins to see if they increase in value. It isn't real money. For purposes
of lowering overhead, would setting up a credit card server be easier or
harder? Bitcoins are really a bad bad idea and they have traction for some
strange reason but I wouldn't get involved with it. It is like trying to
play the commodities market, highly volatile with huge downside risk and
violent fluctuations.

~Ben


On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 4:31 AM, Sandro Santilli <strk at keybit.net> wrote:

>
> On Tue, May 07, 2013 at 09:50:08AM +0200, Vincent Picavet wrote:
>
> > The main problem is the volatility of the money. If you look at the
> > bitcoin/USD exchange rate, you will see that variations are huge. It is
> > therefore very difficult to fix any price in BTC, as its value varies
> too much.
>
> I think the volatility issue can be fixed by NOT keeping BTC as such
> but rather immediately convert to fiat currency. Services like bitpay
> do that for you for a 1% fee (and a minimum transfer of 100 EUR).
> Other services also exist. I've no direct experience of withdrawal though.
>
> The most work will likely be deciding how to organize the thing:
> should someone keep the coins offline or should they be stored online ?
> Should they be kept as BTC or immediately converted ?
> It would be interesting to know which of the qgis team expenses
> could be done via BTC directly, as converting to EURO and then
> transferring to final recipient would not exploit the cost advantage.
> Example services that could be of interest for qgis:
> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Hotels
> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Travel_Companies
> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Web_Hosting
> (more on that wiki page)
>
> --strk;
>
> >
> > If we'd want to fix a price in BTC (for standard donation e.g.), it
> should be
> > dynamic and indexed on the USD/BTC rate (or EUR/BTC) and computed on the
> fly.
> > If it's used to do donations, let the amount free and let the user
> choose its
> > donation according to current exchange rate.
> >
> > There also is no guarantee on the future of bitcoin, which is considered
> an
> > experimentation by its conceptors. It could be superseded by another
> virtual
> > money, or attacked by governments, central banks, or payment agencies
> (visa,
> > paypal...). DDOS on main transactions sites happen frequently too, and
> even
> > cracking of these sites may arise (Mt.Gox, Bitcoin24x have been subject
> to
> > attacks).
> >
> > Therefore, accepting bitcoins means a bit of work to assure that the BTC
> will
> > be withdrawn, and withdraw it when the rate is not bad, so as to
> eliminate the
> > risks in keeping bitcoins.
> >
> > As for simple payment options, Flattr is a good tool for opensource
> projects
> > too.
> >
> > Vincent
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