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[Kluge]

*wallet-to-wallet BTC transactions are free (or can cost ~half a cent per transaction at most [@ current exchange rate prices] under certain conditions)

*if you don't want to learn about or deal with the currency, sites like bit-pay.com exist to quickly convert BTC and credit you in USD (I think they may provide snazzy buttons, too). They charge a flat 2.99%, NO arbitrary $.30/transaction fee, which means a much higher % goes to DF devs in smaller transactions

*is adopted primarily by tech enthusiasts, who I'd suspect are more likely than most to play games as Dwarf Fortress

*Although the "trade" wiki entry for Bitcoin is over 33 pages long, users are always looking for new ways to spend their coins

*creating an announcement thread @ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php to tell others about accepting BTC would likely generate a fair amount of immediate donations (great opp. to inform users of a new DF version, too!)

*I personally pledge a 2BTC donation if you decide to accept BTC and create an announcement thread on the primary BTC forum

http://bitcoin.org/


Cheers!


ETA: Accepting Dwolla instead of Paypal would also be a preferable "alternative" donation option. Transactions <$10 = free. Transactions >$10 = flat $.25 fee. https://www.dwolla.com/

[acetech09]

Yeah. I support that, if not on the grounds for getting more donators, at least making it easier for current donators to donate more/considering donators to have an easy way to do it. If today accepted bitcoin, he'd have $20 tomorrow, but I really don't want to use paypal considering how they've treated me in the past.

[Niccolo]

Look. If Toady decides to accept Bitcoins, I won't oppose it one iota. I don't trust it, but that's just me being paranoid. But your post reads way too much like either someone with an invested interest in Bitcoins or someone paid to advertise for them. Your post reads like a fucking advertisement for the place. (I'm sure Bitcoin itself is perfectly legit, but... this post seems a little too 'door-to-door salesman' for me)

Especially these three lines:

*is adopted primarily by tech enthusiasts, who I'd suspect are more likely than most to play games as Dwarf Fortress

*Although the "trade" wiki entry for Bitcoin is over 33 pages long, users are always looking for new ways to spend their coins

*creating an announcement thread @ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php to tell others about accepting BTC would likely generate a fair amount of immediate donations (great opp. to inform users of a new DF version, too!)

"More likely than most to play Dwarf Fortress" Sorry mate, but tech enthusiasts are also more likely to be stingy with their money. 'Sides, I expect that most tech enthusiasts (Whatever the hell that term means - is this a fan of New Scientist?) who play Roguelikes already know about Dwarf Fortress.

"Users are always looking for new ways to spend their coins." Really? Shouldn't that read "Users realise that their coins are actually real-world money and thus won't fling it at random wallets like they're monkeys with fistfuls of poop"? You make it sound like they're handed a stack of arcade tokens and told to go nuts.

"Creating an announcement thread etc." No. If Toady wanted to beg for money he'd start a Kickstarter.



(Also. Dwolla? "The cash-inspired payment network"? The fuck does that mean? What other possible source of inspiration is there for payment? The barter system's been out of fashion for approximately a millenium)

[Kluge]

Good morning, grumpy gus! I'll go point-by-point.

Look. If Toady decides to accept Bitcoins, I won't oppose it one iota. I don't trust it, but that's just me being paranoid. But your post reads way too much like either someone with an invested interest in Bitcoins or someone paid to advertise for them. Your post reads like a fucking advertisement for the place. (I'm sure Bitcoin itself is perfectly legit, but... this post seems a little too 'door-to-door salesman' for me)

I do have an invested interest in Bitcoins as I own a good few - thus how I would be able to donate. I also happen to enjoy Dwarf Fortress (and Liberal Crime Squad!).

Especially these three lines:

*is adopted primarily by tech enthusiasts, who I'd suspect are more likely than most to play games as Dwarf Fortress

*Although the "trade" wiki entry for Bitcoin is over 33 pages long, users are always looking for new ways to spend their coins

*creating an announcement thread @ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php to tell others about accepting BTC would likely generate a fair amount of immediate donations (great opp. to inform users of a new DF version, too!)

"More likely than most to play Dwarf Fortress" Sorry mate, but tech enthusiasts are also more likely to be stingy with their money. 'Sides, I expect that most tech enthusiasts (Whatever the hell that term means - is this a fan of New Scientist?) who play Roguelikes already know about Dwarf Fortress.

They probably do already know about Dwarf Fortress, but I'd doubt they know about the recent update. I only know because I check the site every couple months (or see it in the RSS reader I rarely use). As for "tech enthusiast" - that was probably a bad description.... "people who aren't fazed by complex systems with a large learning curve to really understand" better?

"Users are always looking for new ways to spend their coins." Really? Shouldn't that read "Users realise that their coins are actually real-world money and thus won't fling it at random wallets like they're monkeys with fistfuls of poop"? You make it sound like they're handed a stack of arcade tokens and told to go nuts.

That's true to an extent. Sending money through Bitcoin is extremely easy, however. There's no bank tethering, credit cards, etc -- just enter the receiving address in the client, enter an amount, and the money's sent, simple as that. ETA: The reason this would loosen folks' wallets is because it's much more convenient (and cheaper) to send someone Bitcoins than it is to send them PPUSD. ETA2: I should also add, that while you can buy things like PMs and a motel room in a few places, there aren't too many *essentials* which can be bought with BTC. You can buy computers, but not the electricity to power them. You can buy coffee beans, but not the water to make the coffee. You can buy guns, but you can't buy a house to store them in. So, insofar as that, I think people are more willing to spend BTC on services/items - or gifts - which are more novel, merely because it's not yet possible to buy many essentials with it. I doubt many people are really thinking "do I donate 5BTC to Toady, or buy the baby formula I'm out of?" Along that line of thinking, I believe BTC users would be more willing to do something like donate to game developers they like.

ETA3: I should also add knowing a much larger portion of my donation to Bay12 will actually go to Bay12 would make me feel better about donating. I paid a premium to buy Amnesia: The Dark Descent direct from the devs because even though it was cheaper on Steam, I wanted to buy Amnesia, not convenience at the cost of "dirtying" my money by having a portion go to middle-men.

"Creating an announcement thread etc." No. If Toady wanted to beg for money he'd start a Kickstarter.

Maybe, but I wasn't suggesting he beg for money. I suggested he announce he's accepting Bitcoin for donations. If announcing acceptance of donations is begging, and he does not wish to beg, he really ought to remove the "support us" buttons on the bay12 site.

(Also. Dwolla? "The cash-inspired payment network"? The fuck does that mean? What other possible source of inspiration is there for payment? The barter system's been out of fashion for approximately a millenium)

Paypal charges high fees because they process credit/debit cards (and also because they permit chargebacks, which are a nightmare for many merchants). Dwolla only handles bank transactions, and can thus charge much lower fees. Whereas Paypal is "debt-inspired" insofar as they're designed to handle credit credit cards, Dwolla is "cash-inspired" insofar as it is designed only to handle money people have in their bank accounts.

I'd be happy to address any more concerns!

[Niccolo]

Well, the fact that you actually bothered to return rather than avoid the topic and move on tells me a whole lot more - such as you're not actually going around advertising. And you sincerely answered most of my grievances, even though I was frankly a little too angry in that post. (Sorry about that, by the way.)

So, uh, yeah. I probably shouldn't have, uh, lambasted quite that much.

Welp, it's all cool with me. You've written a whole lot more on it's plusses now, so I can properly see where you're coming from. I might recommend fleshing out your opening post a tad - it might save you from more people appearing who make the same sort of first assumptions that I did.

And thanks for sincerely answering!

[MaskedMiner]

There is also that hes not Escaped Lunatic, so he didn't create account for sake of this thread.

[zwei]

Well, the fact that you actually bothered to return rather than avoid the topic and move on tells me a whole lot more - such as you're not actually going around advertising.

Well, well intentioned enthusiast is imho a bit worse than advertizer.

OP: Look, bitcoin is cool concept that someone managed to breathe life into. Problem is, animation spell was botched because creators were primarily techies and not economists.

It is far cry from usefull currency because goods and services you can use it to buy are nonexistent. You just cant buy food, pay rent or taxes with it. And you will never be able to because in the end, everybody needs to have their national currency to pay taxes to their country. And since everyone needs that for about 50% of their income (and everyone who is recipient od that spent 50% needs 50% of that in their national currency to pay their taxes and so on)... It turns out that every bitcoin would have to be eventually exchanged to $ - and knowing that, why would you accept it. People accept payments in non-national currencies because exchange works both ways (in euro countries, someone need $ to euro exchange and in dollar countries someone needs euro to $ exchange). Bitcoin has no "native" market where bitcoin is necessary to have, so exchange is problematic. Simply put, essentials are not going to be feasible untill you start your own country with bitcoin as its oficial currency.

It has serious design issue: If bitcoin grew to size of 50million userbase, it would be unsistainable within week because hard drive manufacturers would not be able to keep up with transaction-log spoace requirements. That is direct result of ommiting middleman.

It has even more serious design issue: There is finite amount of bitcoins that can ever exist, it is delationary currency. Paying mortage (or any loan) in this setup would be next to impossible.

It frankly have no idea what Toady would do with bicoin payments other than turn then to USD asap.

Good point is about its advertizing impact and possible stream of donations.

[Kluge]

Well, well intentioned enthusiast is imho a bit worse than advertizer.

OP: Look, bitcoin is cool concept that someone managed to breathe life into. Problem is, animation spell was botched because creators were primarily techies and not economists.

It is far cry from usefull currency because goods and services you can use it to buy are nonexistent. You just cant buy food, pay rent or taxes with it. And you will never be able to because in the end, everybody needs to have their national currency to pay taxes to their country. And since everyone needs that for about 50% of their income (and everyone who is recipient od that spent 50% needs 50% of that in their national currency to pay their taxes and so on)... It turns out that every bitcoin would have to be eventually exchanged to $ - and knowing that, why would you accept it. People accept payments in non-national currencies because exchange works both ways (in euro countries, someone need $ to euro exchange and in dollar countries someone needs euro to $ exchange). Bitcoin has no "native" market where bitcoin is necessary to have, so exchange is problematic. Simply put, essentials are not going to be feasible untill you start your own country with bitcoin as its oficial currency.

It has serious design issue: If bitcoin grew to size of 50million userbase, it would be unsistainable within week because hard drive manufacturers would not be able to keep up with transaction-log spoace requirements. That is direct result of ommiting middleman.

It has even more serious design issue: There is finite amount of bitcoins that can ever exist, it is delationary currency. Paying mortage (or any loan) in this setup would be next to impossible.

It frankly have no idea what Toady would do with bicoin payments other than turn then to USD asap.

Good point is about its advertizing impact and possible stream of donations.

Your post is off-topic. As I mentioned in the OP, Toady CAN take the BTC and have it transferred immediately into USD through a service called bit-pay. Long-term viability of BTC is thus irrelevant. It is being used, there would be donors willing to give, and I was giving reasons why I think they'd be likely to give.

.... But I can't resist, so...

It is far cry from usefull currency because goods and services you can use it to buy are nonexistent.

False. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade is over 33 pages long -- this does not even count the infamous Silk Road, which's a marketplace for a very large variety of goods.

You just cant buy food, pay rent or taxes with it. And you will never be able to because in the end, everybody needs to have their national currency to pay taxes to their country. And since everyone needs that for about 50% of their income (and everyone who is recipient od that spent 50% needs 50% of that in their national currency to pay their taxes and so on)... It turns out that every bitcoin would have to be eventually exchanged to $ - and knowing that, why would you accept it. People accept payments in non-national currencies because exchange works both ways (in euro countries, someone need $ to euro exchange and in dollar countries someone needs euro to $ exchange). Bitcoin has no "native" market where bitcoin is necessary to have, so exchange is problematic. Simply put, essentials are not going to be feasible untill you start your own country with bitcoin as its oficial currency.

That's true. - BUT, it's not really a fault. Bitcoins do not need to buy essentials. They do not need to replace USD, NZD, AUD, whatever - they have their place, and that is as an auxiliary competing currency. Granted, property taxes alone make up >30% of my monthly expenditure, but there are many items I purchase I use Bitcoin for.... Amazon gift codes, for example. I buy them @ a 15-20% discount and can use it to buy air conditioners, baby food, diapers, lights, books, etc. -- I do not use BTC exclusively, because to do so would require I do not use utilities or live legally in the US, but I don't need to use Bitcoin exclusively, so it's a non-issue.

It has serious design issue: If bitcoin grew to size of 50million userbase, it would be unsistainable within week because hard drive manufacturers would not be able to keep up with transaction-log spoace requirements. That is direct result of ommiting middleman.

That's just silly. There are light clients which neither download the blockchain nor store it. If you want to "serve" the blockchain for others, then yeah - you'll need a fair bit of hard-drive space after a while, but storage space is cheap and HDD storage capacity is increasing rapidly.

It has even more serious design issue: There is finite amount of bitcoins that can ever exist, it is delationary currency. Paying mortage (or any loan) in this setup would be next to impossible.

Again, a non-issue, because I doubt anyone expects to pay their mortgage with Bitcoins, and it doesn't need to be used for mortgages to be successful. That said, though Bitcoin is currently in the expansionary stage, there is already a healthy lending market. If there were a predicted 3% deflation rate in 2015, loans would be lent as currently, but at a much lower rate, since lenders only need to cover for the potential of default. There is already a fellow who lends at 0% interest, but that would be likely to expand to many others were Bitcoin a deflationary currency. While Keynesians may insist the monetary base needs to always be expanded for the sake of spurring production ("holding it is a bad idea because it depreciates, so you have to put your money to work"), having near-zero interest rates would likely encourage more people to take out loans to cover what they need. - And with that said, again and for the last time, there's no reason it has to be USD or BTC.

[NW_Kohaku]

Except, have you read how Toady lives?

He pretty much lives in a nearly-empty small house with nothing but his computer and cat, and buys only the most basic essentials.  Buying food and paying for rent and utilities are pretty much the only things he actually does use his money for.

[Kluge]

Except, have you read how Toady lives?

He pretty much lives in a nearly-empty small house with nothing but his computer and cat, and buys only the most basic essentials.  Buying food and paying for rent and utilities are pretty much the only things he actually does use his money for.

Which is fine, because he doesn't even have to handle Bitcoins since services like bit-pay exist which automatically converts BTC to USD and credits his account. (And even that's STILL at a lower cost than using Paypal)

ETA: If it helps my credibility, I have a short position against BTC right now :p

[Niccolo]

We're all missing the crux of the argument - set aside the arguing about Bitcoins for now. This is, ultimately, about offering an alternative way to donate to Toady.

I don't think Bitcoins are the answer. I really don't. It honestly seems too gimmicky. But and however, offering an alternative route to donate to Toady is perhaps something to be investigated.



In direct relation to Bitcoins - have you read their Myths page? It's fantastic reading for conspiracy theorists.

[BurnedToast]

Except, have you read how Toady lives?

He pretty much lives in a nearly-empty small house with nothing but his computer and cat, and buys only the most basic essentials.  Buying food and paying for rent and utilities are pretty much the only things he actually does use his money for.

Which is fine, because he doesn't even have to handle Bitcoins since services like bit-pay exist which automatically converts BTC to USD and credits his account. (And even that's STILL at a lower cost than using Paypal)

ETA: If it helps my credibility, I have a short position against BTC right now :p

If it's so easy to convert them to money, why can't people just convert their own bitcoins into money and donate THAT to toady?

I obviously can't speak for him, but personally I wouldn't want to bother dealing with people trying to donate pretend money to me then trying to figure out how to convert it into actual spendable cash money. It seems like more hassle and worry then it's worth for the (likely) small amount of extra donations it would bring in.

[Kluge]

Except, have you read how Toady lives?

He pretty much lives in a nearly-empty small house with nothing but his computer and cat, and buys only the most basic essentials.  Buying food and paying for rent and utilities are pretty much the only things he actually does use his money for.

Which is fine, because he doesn't even have to handle Bitcoins since services like bit-pay exist which automatically converts BTC to USD and credits his account. (And even that's STILL at a lower cost than using Paypal)

ETA: If it helps my credibility, I have a short position against BTC right now :p

If it's so easy to convert them to money, why can't people just convert their own bitcoins into money and donate THAT to toady?

I obviously can't speak for him, but personally I wouldn't want to bother dealing with people trying to donate pretend money to me then trying to figure out how to convert it into actual spendable cash money. It seems like more hassle and worry then it's worth for the (likely) small amount of extra donations it would bring in.

It's easy for a merchant to accept BTC through using Bitpay. The fee for that's fairly low. For individuals, they either pay fairly high fees for an immediate way to convert BTC to usable USD, or need to sell BTC for USD at an exchange, then initiate a transfer from the exchange to their bank which usually takes 3-5 days.

If it's really too much of a hassle, I'd be willing to collect donations in BTC, convert it to USD myself at no fee, then donate USD proceeds to Toady via PP in large chunks (to prevent having the donation overwhelmed with Paypal fees) or whatever's preferable for him. Since it'd be using one receiving BTC address, I can be held accountable by the community as block explorers permit people to view exactly how much has gone in and out of the account. I can also provide as much identifying information to Toady as desired.

ETA: I'd prefer to send checks, fwiw. Could be sent out monthly. No fee this way and can initiate it from my CU's website.

[Kluge]

^Noticed I forgot to mention that Bitpay's role is to immediately convert BTC to USD. They can direct-deposit USD right in the merchant's (Toady's) bank account within a day of receiving a payment. Toady can accept BTC with very little hassle while not even having to deal with the currency. However, I believe it'd be easier for Toady just to give Bitcoin a whirl. There are now "lightweight" clients such as Electrum where you don't need to download a blockchain, use lots of computer resources, etc. There's also a pretty well-respected e-wallet @ blockchain.info. By going one of these routes over Bitpay, Toady can just post a short BTC receiving address and watch the funds roll in, and eventually cash out at an exchange or individually with someone if he so chooses. Some examples of games using BTC for donations include http://bromo.minethings.com/credits/shop and the large list of (mostly gambling) games @ https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Games

Current BTC market cap is ~$50m. For those interested, there's also a monthly-published magazine available @ http://bitcoinmagazine.net/

(bump after thinking about this again while going to poke the Mad God folks) /evangelist