FWIW, I have both PayPal and Bitcoin donations at grapheneos.org/donate and the vast majority of the donations have been via Bitcoin. I doubt that would be the case if I added direct credit card donations via Stripe but they would take substantial fees: stripe.com/en-ca/pricing.
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Stripe can also be even more of a hassle than PayPal. They aren't as hostile towards people receiving money as PayPal, but you end up needing to pay fees for chargebacks: stripe.com/docs/disputes (which would be $15 CAD per dispute if I used it). People *will* donate fraudulently.
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Even if you're fine with people getting donations back fraudulently due to later regret (which may not seem so bad), you need to win the dispute or you pay the fee and your account ends up flagged for involvement in fraud. Leads to fund freezes and eventually losing the account.
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yeah, I just wish Bi/tcoin was a real thing so I could use it
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Well, I use it, and I've spent some of it directly on newegg.ca in the past. It sucks they've ended up stubbornly not scaling up the block size as planned because it's increasingly less viable for direct purchases without high fees, only slow transfers are cheap.
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I hate exchanges, and don't trust them one bit. I was previously beginning a process of slowly getting ~1000 USD at a time turned into CAD and deposited into my bank account, and the exchange that I was using (Quadriga) finished an exit scam right before I sent them another 1k.
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I do think that it's the best way to receive donations in practice. People can send donations with incredibly low fees and you don't deal with chargebacks or disputes since payments can't be reversed. Can use btcpayserver.org if you want to hide how much you're receiving.
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my problems with Bi/tcoin are primarily political in nature (it's extremely destructive and also totally controlled in practice by like five guys who want to launder money from China, both bad long term outlook); I have used it extensively and know what it's capable of
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Bitcoin isn't very private at all even when not reusing addresses but I would like it far more if it was. I see support for laundering money as a necessary evil similar to criminals benefiting from end-to-end encrypted messaging. I do agree proof of work is a serious problem.
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KYC and AML aren't a problem for organized crime anyway, just ask HSBC... the bank that denied me service for bogus and likely discriminatory reasons but gladly laundered $670 billion (not a typo) for Sinaloa. Abolish KYC and AML
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Yeah, I fully agree, and I'm strongly anti-authoritarian (definitely not an anarcho-capitalist so don't worry about that), so this is the kind of stuff that I want to fight against as part of my work. Governments are going to get rid of cash and I want a proper alternative... :(
I don't share the monetary policy beliefs of Bitcoin either. I want privacy, and I don't think having a deflationary currency as the dominant one would be a good thing (especially as deflationary as Bitcoin is meant to be) but it's really the best way for me to get donations ATM.
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Few people realize how horrifying it is to deal with PayPal and credit card processors as a merchant, especially as a small business / individual. It's fantastic as a customer, since you're protected from fraud and you can abuse it. It's a big part of merchants being centralized.
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