Accept Bitcoin for Donations and Supporter Upgrades

Discussion in 'Suggestion Box Archives' started by joshmcf, Jun 27, 2014.

  1. I know I had suggested this before, but the idea was shot-down, as they didn't want to deal in converting a cryptocurrency that was unstable and could quickly drop in price. However, I am bringing to attention a new way cryptocurrency donations could be accepted on EMC.

    BitPay is a trustworthy service in which Bitcoins can be accepted and instantly converted over to USD and several other currencies without any risk on either end. By the coins instantly being converted over to fiat, EMC would have no risk of the coins losing value. Another advantage of using Bitpay are it's low transaction fees, a free account only has a 1% fee, while Paypal's fee starts at 3.4% per charge, and Bitpay's Professional account offers no fees at only $30 per month. BitPay even services popular companies such as Wordpress, Virgin Galactic, Namecheap, and Tigerdirect!

    Advantages of accepting Bitcoin and BitPay:
    • New user-base
    • Lower fees
    • No chance of losing income from a drop in price of Bitcoin
    • Being on the forefront of technology
    • Additional server benefits for members
    If the admins are interested in the addition of this payment service, feel free to message me, and I can provide additional help if its needed, I'm a large dev in the cryptocurrency scene.
    cowland123 likes this.
  2. Bitcoin and other digital currencies move in value over time. If I were to buy supporter for ____ bitcoin one day, the next day it could either be more or less expensive. Online currencies are also not government regulated, and have a high risk of keeping them (example: mt.gox)
  3. ... We've had this already. The discussion will end the same as it did with dogecoins.
    Bro_im_infinite likes this.
    1. With BitPay, a price in USD or in Bitcoin could be set, so it wouldn't necessarily be affected, as $10 would still be worth $10 in USD with dynamic pricing.
    2. There is no "high risk of keeping them" if they are stored properly. Users are regularly warned to never store their coins in an active exchange, and to instead store them in an encrypted wallet. However the risk would still be the consumers risk, as EMC would be completely safe, as they would never have direct access to the coins and they would be converted immediately.
    3. Even though the coins aren't regulated, that's one of the main appeals of this method of payment. BitPay is a very low risk service, as the help manage payments to some of the largest technologically oriented companies today.
  4. or you could just not use black market currencies, convert them yourself
  5. This is one of the largest misconceptions of cryptocurrency. While Bitcoin may have been used on Silk Road, cash is was historically and is still used to buy the products on the website. Bitcoin is not a "black market currency", it's the users that choose to use it for that purpose. Just as Bitcoin can be chosen to be use to buy illegal products, cash is used to do the same exact thing. And if Bitcoin was really a "black market currency" would companies such as Wordpress, Virgin Galactic, Namecheap, and Tigerdirect accept it?
  6. Dogecoin was rejected as it's price fluctuates constantly. Bitcoin, unlike Dogecoin, offers services such as BitPay that allow the Bitcoins received in payments to be converted to fiat immediately, eliminating all risk from the sellers end.
  7. While this service does cover the concerns of BitCoins, its honestly just not worth the investment.

    Those companies have a lot of resources and can afford to invest in supporting it because they also get a PR boost from it.

    But for us, and our target audience... it's just not worth it. We would have what 10-50 people max out of all of EMC who would even potentially have enough bitcoins to pay for supporter?

    And those people are obviously better set in their own personal finances, otherwise I wouldn't understand why a poor person would be investing in such a volatile and risky stock, so those people are also able to pay by PayPal too.

    Even if I received help implementing (Which would be a huge task to add), there is still maintenance cost associated with it too to ensure it stays working and is bug free.

    I just could not ever justify BitCoins support being worth it, as my time is already so limited (regardless of getting help, I'd still have to be involved), I would rather spend that time elsewhere in ways of helping EMC have better gameplay features, solve problems and grow.
    PenguinDJ, 607, Olaf_C and 1 other person like this.
  8. its a black market economy because its unregulated ultranationally. the business (in this case emc) is assuming risk by accepting a currency that has nothing supporting it and can fluctuate by thousands of dollars from hour to hour. even if the currency was instantly converted the second you made the transaction theres still huge risks like bybacks. similarly emc does not trade in north korean currency because quite simply it isnt stable enough to be a valid currency. larger companies can accept those risks with a huge legal department and team of analysts trading diligently.
  9. The point was that EMC would never be touching the bitcoin itself. We would simply receive $20*(.99) flat as USD, but the user had the option to use their bitcoins instead of cash.

    So it all boils down to "Adding another payment provider".

    We had plans to redesign the supporter system and accept multiple payment providers... but now i dont see us doing that as it wont be worth it since we wont be going to the credit approach thanks to mojang.
    jkjkjk182, PenguinDJ and bitemenow15 like this.