It's possible to set up an account with MtGox that will convert bitcoins to dollars right away with every transaction, AFAIK. Also, people interested in donating bit coins have bitcoins to give. If the value of bitcoins drops, that doesn't mean the same people would have donated more bitcoins if they knew that it would.
I think the real issue would be if the marginal increase in donations due to people being able to use their preferred currency is worth the hassle other potential drawbacks of setting it up. If somebody interested in donating bit coins were to ask Toady to set something up, that might be enough. Or he might not go for it. Questions about making donations may be more suitable for email or PM than this thread.
ToadyOne seems to be in favor of the path of least resistance with the administration of the businessy side of ToadyOne The Great Productions. Why bother with unstable, obscure, quasi legitimate tender, when in so far ToadyOne makes enough with just accepting donations.
And on another note, thats what we need more administrative man hours away from working on the game, for a questionable increase in donations and furthermore, a questionable sustained increase in donation.
Firstly, there's nothing "illigitimate" about bitcoins.
Second, I disagree with the notion that Toady makes "enough." He could make due with less, but he would certainly prefer to make more.
Third, Toady does devote time, generally on weekends, I believe, to responding to donations, in providing all the perks a donation can give. This would be as much time spent on a single donation. It could be worthwhile to provide the convenience to the single donor alone, regardless of potential sustained increases. It is a also a false choice to say that any time Toady spends time on donations or anything else means less time developing the game. It's not that clear cut.
I hears a lot about bitcoins in relationship to illegal activity, like drug market, botnet rentals, etc
Either way, I don't think that having bitcoin donation will be worth the overhead, particularly with how iffy their legal basis is, some of the exchanges don't seems to be sure if they're operating legally as a currency. Even without the association, it's very minor currency and very unstable to boot.
So in short; grey area for it, unstable exchange rate, having to manage another account just for it, lack of accountablity in the system ( not criminal activity, just general lack of tracking that banks are required to have ).
ToadyOne has spoken about maximizing revenue in a few DF Talk, and hes also aware that if he were to redo the entire UI to make it more accessible would also probably increase revenue as well. And, he/we (Its hard to see how much weight ThreeToes has 8/) seems to not be terrible interested in doing things for the sake of maximizing revenue. So, that's moot.
And that would go against community common perception of ToadyOne, in being not wanting to 'sell out'. Heck, ToadyOne doesnt seem to even want to make crappy print on demand t-shirts to help support themselves.
So, I think its safe to conclude that ToadyOne, is at least satisfied with the amount that DF makes him/them.
And BitCoins is qusi legitimate tender because its a tender only used in a grey market, a tiny, obscure, market that almost no one cares about. The fact that its heavily used (in what little it is used) in conjunction with black market activity doesnt really impact its legitimacy. All actual currency is used for black market transactions.
But beyond that, you neatly avoided the issue of its questionable measure of donations or it being sustaining source of donations. I dont blame you, BitCoin grey market, is de facto dying. Even on the onion network, its not exactly flourishing.