Hey guys. Have you ever heard about bitcoin?
Last year , i think even before we quit our jobs to work full time, we researched many things to build kaya and we stumbled upon bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency , designed for online transactions. Its an open source project with some mathematical backing on how the currency is handled and created.
Although it would seem to be growing, its still not a strong currency like the dollar or the EUR but it would seem to be here to stay, at least as a minor-currency.
The advantage it has over paypal or other similar services to transfer money is that its super cheap. The transaction fees are almost inexistant. (well below the 1%)
Have you ever heard of bitcoin? should we consider using it as an alternative payment method?
There is a transaction fee if you use a third party service, but AFAIK you can transfer bitcoins directly to another person without a fee (you need to have some bitcoins in the first place).
ReplyDeleteYou can "mine" for bitcoins using the processing power of your computers (that is used for ... something). You could even put a .js for mining in the browser. Of course, that is a terrible idea.
IMO you shouldn't bother to think about implementing it. It isn't money, it´s more like a sophisticated pyramid scheme than a real currency. Also you should probably accept Paypal or a similar payment service (google wallet, 2checkout, etc) and this covers the same use case that bitcoin would be used for.
Interesting read about bitcoin:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/Is-the-cryptocurrency-Bitcoin-a-good-idea
Don't miss Adam's second post (Adam being the author of the above linked article). He did a little more research and arrived at an honest "I don't know what Bitcoin is" conclusion. You can read his thoughts here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2612237
DeleteThis second post is closer to the truth but, understandably, still misses some points. The volatility concerns, while real, are a little out-dated. Check out http://bitcoinmedia.com/market-volatility-has-gone-down/.
The only part that Adam takes back is the word "scam".
DeleteRight below the first commentary which paints bitcoin as a scam, there are rebuttals and even mentioning of a retractal from the first commentator.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't that blogpost contradict your first opinion?
12 months ago or 6 months ago I would have argued against the use of Bitcoin as an alternative payment method on a budding go server. I asked for a behind the scenes acceptance at goshrine.com just to support the server but the owner found the project rather fascinating and decided to add a Bitcoin donation option anyway.
ReplyDeleteBitcoin has been evolving quickly and I believe that today, assuming bit-pay is suitably easy to use, including Bitcoin as an alternative payment method alongside PayPal would do more good than harm to kaya.gs.
I couldn't resist the challenge of trying to find some Go players who also use Bitcoin. I found three who were trying to earn some BTC (bitcoins) by teaching Go on various servers:
ReplyDeletehttps://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45553.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=22810.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=16019.0
I did some research on this topic about a year ago. Have you guys heard of Dwolla? (https://www.dwolla.com/) It hasn't been around as long as BitCoin, but transactions have a flat 25c (USD) fee if over $10, and free otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI certainly have heard of Dwolla but never looked into it. It seems to be a direct competitor to PayPal with a similar game-plan but I'm happy to be educated.
DeleteThe main selling point seems to be the fees which really lend themselves to quickly sending small amounts. Such functionality is becoming more important on the internet every day and could be particularly valuable to something like kaya.gs. PayPal has some big advantages in some areas but is simply not good enough when it comes to handling many small transactions, particularly when it comes to trading virtual goods (the charge-back scam problem).
Even assuming pretty good things for those elements of Dwolla that I've yet to learn I believe Bitcoin would be a better addition to kaya.gs, both short and long term.
However, to make a decision we need more information on how kaya.gs plans to generate funds long term. If such plans are too fuzzy at this stage then it would be best to defer inclusion of an alternative payment method until it is more obviously useful. In my opinion this is a very low priority compared with getting basic translation functionality in place and moving towards a beta server.
I think you should certainly accept bitcoin.
ReplyDeleteIt couldn't hurt, and you could always be progressive and pass the transaction costs to the user, instead of hiding them (for anything you decide to use).
ReplyDelete