
ProtonMail Now Supports Bitcoin Payments - vabmit
https://protonmail.com/blog/bitcoin-secure-email/
======
MollyR
I'm thinking of switching my business email to protonmail from gmail.

Any users like it ?

The whole google memo revealed google employees are not as trustworthy as I
thought. All the social media talk of blacklists, and inquisition tactics from
some of upper management is bad for business.

I've already gotten emails from clients asking me to change their business
google services to something else (anything else in their own words).

~~~
Accacin
I've not seen anyone else talking about mailbox.org. I've been using them for
a while after moving away from Fastmail and I'm loving it. Cheap and they're
recommeded by [https://www.privacytools.io/](https://www.privacytools.io/).

~~~
2ion
Their service may be good enough but they are hardly investing enough into
their product at the moment. mailbox.org is also not a core product of theirs.
Just read through the forums (mostly in German); there are basic
features/aspects missing you'd expect with a paid service nowadays like
automated DKIM next to bug fixes needed around the web interface, which also
can't compare to Fastmail's or Google's mail UI in terms of efficiency and
usefulness – it's clunky: consequences of being fully dependent on foreign
upstreams, I guess. Plus there's plenty of downtime. And that's for prices
similar to Fastmail and GSuite when looking at similarly featured tiers
(GSuite Basic – Fastmail professional – mailbox.org Mail XXL plan).

~~~
unicornporn
I actually ran mailbox and fastmail side by side before settling on mailbox. I
think the UI is next to flawless. AFAIK they don't work on the UI themselves,
they use [https://www.open-xchange.com/](https://www.open-xchange.com/)

------
blfr
If you like Proton features and want to move away from Gmail, consider
Mailpile[1]. It's almost ready, there's a release candidate and packages for
Debian/Ubuntu; it offers to protect your data with a master password like
Proton; it supports GPG which with all its problems is still the way to
encrypt your emails; and you can run it on your own server. Best of all it's
open source and written in Python. You can know exactly what it does with your
messages.

Mailpile is an email client (MUA) so you will need a server (MTA). At first
you can try it out with your regular ISP, even Gmail. Later you can set up
your own server. Setup is a little involved but much less than people tell you
and, if you choose a competently run distro, requires very little ongoing
maintenance.

With your own server, you can have it working exactly as you like. Export
feature? No problem, you have direct access to the maildir, mailbox or the
database. Want a catch-all? One switch in the config. You will have little
trouble finding a provider who accepts your preferred method of payment, too.

[1] [https://www.mailpile.is/](https://www.mailpile.is/)

~~~
the_common_man
There is also cloudron.io. It has imap/smtp/sieve/catch-
all/relaying/aliases/tagging/rest api. Fairly complete.
[https://cloudron.io/documentation/email/](https://cloudron.io/documentation/email/)

~~~
nullwarp
My only complaint with cloudron is that the auto-update mechanism requires a
subscription. You can manually upgrade, but it's awkward and I broke it more
than once while trying.

~~~
type0
Can you use one subscription to update multiple cloudron VPS servers or would
you need to have a separate for each one?

------
csomar
This is a little bit "late". Fastmail has supported Bitcoin payment for a very
long time. In fact, I was surprised last year when I wanted to try proton mail
and they didn't have Bitcoin payments.

~~~
sdotsen
So you couldn't just use a CC or some other form of payment? Seriously?

~~~
blunte
I expect that's not the point he was trying to make. I believe he/she was
stating their surprise that bitcoin was not a payment option back then.
"Seriously."

~~~
sdotsen
No the point is it stopped him from using/trying the service. If he really was
interested he would've found an alternative payment solution

~~~
Matt3o12_
The point was he wanted to test a service which does not ask him for his
billing address, CC info and other stuff, which not only completely
deanonymize him, he would also have to trust them to store this information
safely (which you cannot really expect any company to do).

So in a way, his test was completed (no I don’t want to use this service)
before he was even able to test their product.

Just imagine you want to test the food of the newly opened restaurant
downstairs. Before you actually get to test the meal, have been treated like
shit. Sure, you could have stayed to try the food, but you have already
decided that it is not worth it.

------
teleproto
But are they open source yet?

Sure, you can find the web client sources. How about the server, and the
mobile apps? The website makes a big deal of them being open source after all
( [https://protonmail.com/blog/protonmail-open-
source/](https://protonmail.com/blog/protonmail-open-source/) ).

~~~
mi100hael
Mobile apps should be open source, but server doesn't really matter. It's just
some boring plumbing shuffling around a bunch of encrypted blobs.

~~~
danenania
There's also no way to verify that a server is really running the same code
that was open-sourced.

------
jmeyer2k
Bitcoin is not anonymous.

~~~
intopieces
You are never anonymous when you connect to the Internet, even over Tor, even
through 7 proxies. There is always a connection right back to you.

We need to move beyond the obsession with anonymity and refocus the goal as
being privacy. Then, recognize that privacy has several levels. That way, the
expectation is more clear.

~~~
the_stc
This is disingenuous. Bitcoin is very anti-anonymous. Tor is rather anonymous.
Saying that perfect anonymity does not exist because there's always some bits
leaking to an omniscient entity is not helpful.

ProtonMail should support Monero. For now, I pay using a group of Monero
wallets I churn every few hours and xmr.to. I suppose Bitcoin is the least
common denominator in that sense.

~~~
intopieces
>Bitcoin is very anti-anonymous.

That's correct. It is very anti-anonymous by its design; its security rests
everyone verifying the transactions. The distinction you make is the same one
I attempt to make by arguing against anonymity as a goal. Both Bitcoin and Tor
are, in the mind of the public, construed as ways to be anonymous on the
Internet. That is dangerous.

------
wakkaflokka
I've been forwarding all of my email from Gmail to ProtonMail, just to see how
I like the ProtonMail interface. So far I'm liking it a lot. A little
weirdness on getting timely notifications on Android. But I might switch
completely.

Anybody make the switch?

~~~
blunte
I did, and I switched back. Maybe I'll try them again if they ever release a
feature that allows me to export (bulk) email. Until then, any emails you
receive directly to PM are trapped there (unless you manually forward each
one, by hand).

------
blunte
More "progress" from ProtonMail, while they still provide no way to export
emails in bulk. They recommend you forward every individual email or print it.

The Export feature has been an open request since before March 2015.

Another feature which would give users a way to get their mail out of PM is
the ability to check mail from a client like Outlook or Thunderbird. That has
been an open feature request since before February 2015.

They, as with other companies that refuse to listen to their customers, will
eventually fail. Of course failure may mean being bought by a larger
competitor (and a few of the bad decision-makers cashing out)...

~~~
vabmit
Try to relax a bit. It is good for your health. :) Both of those features are
under development. If you would like to see them sooner rather than later,
perhaps you know some great programmers that you could recommend to
careers@protonmail.ch? Or, you could share ProtonMail's Careers page:
[https://protonmail.com/careers](https://protonmail.com/careers)

ProtonMail is hiring!

~~~
rodrigoavie
Protonmail fan and user here. Guys, honestly there are better ways to respond
to customers and potential customers, without the patronizing tone. That can't
possibly help.

~~~
cal5k
It actually didn't seem idiomatic... I suspect that english is not their first
language and they might not have realized they were being rude.

~~~
rodrigoavie
Funny, I thought about that too right after I wrote my comment.

------
jron
It doesn't look like they have an option to validate account creation from a
bitcoin payment instead of an SMS/email. I suspect it would be a popular
feature.

------
GigabyteCoin
>"You can now get secure email anonymously"

How exactly... by paying with Bitcoin?

And this is coming from a security-conscious company?

Unless I mined the Bitcoins myself, and never spent the remaining 12.45 BTC
that I mined (after presumably spending 0.05 BTC on protonmail)... it is far
from "Anonymous".

If they started accepting Zcash, however...

~~~
tradersam
> Zcash

Monero would be a better option.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
Care to elaborate?

I don't know a ton about Zcash or Monero, I only know that Zcash advertises
and actually produces truly anonymous transactions (that the founders can
unmask, or so I have read).

Is Monero anonymous as well? For every transaction? Or only specific ones
(like Zcash).

~~~
tradersam
Here's a really good explanation of RingCT:
[https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/83/how-does-
moner...](https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/83/how-does-monero-
privacy-and-security-compare-to-zcash)

------
brewdad
I've played around with ProtonMail in the past but never made the switch. I
see now that there is a one password mode that seems more convenient than my
legacy 2 password mode. I already have 2FA setup. Given that, is one password
mode safe enough or are you still using 2 passwords?

------
yakshaving_jgt
I want to use ProtonMail (and will pay for it), but lack of IMAP is a deal-
breaker. Some of the other commenters mentioned IMAP is in beta; can I get on
this too? I'm currently managing an iRedMail instance and it's not ideal.

------
kristianp
Which will be quickly converted back to Euro or Swiss Francs for them by their
payment provider. I doubt they'll keep any of that bitcoin.

~~~
tradersam
You never know, Overstock.com is now keeping 50% of their crypto payments in
crypto.[1]

[1]: [https://www.coindesk.com/ostk-hodl-overstock-
keep-50-bitcoin...](https://www.coindesk.com/ostk-hodl-overstock-
keep-50-bitcoin-payments-investments/)

------
rtpg
So this product is still priced in Euros, though you can pay in BTC.

Are there major products out there priced in Bitcoin yet?

~~~
StavrosK
No, but I can give you a subscription that charges you a random amount each
month, which is pretty close.

------
cevn
Can I pay for ProtonVPN in coin as well?

~~~
arosier
Ya, you can signup for ProtonVPN through ProtonMail; therefore, you can pay
with coin through ProtonMail for ProtonVPN.

------
firekvz
now that we are talking about email. what is a good open source email server
to use nowdays? or some free provider where i can use my own domain?

~~~
jancborchardt
A good open source email server is
[https://mailinabox.email/](https://mailinabox.email/) :)

------
txmx2000
Disappointed that there's no mention of a discount. Cryptocurrency payments
will save them a lot of money. Web/email hosting is an industry with a high
risk if fraud.

~~~
orthecreedence
> Cryptocurrency payments will save them a lot of money

...until they convert it to cash?

~~~
Klathmon
The reason it will save them money is because there are no "chargebacks" or
reverts with bitcoin.

You get $10 worth of bitcoin in your account and it's confirmed, you have $10
of bitcoin, and nobody can take it back.

That, plus the lack of a 3% fee (although there might be one for their bitcoin
processor) means a good amount of savings for some.

------
trustworthy
Very good initiative. Happy to see that you're moving in the right direction.
Remember, though, that Bitcoin is many things and anonymous is not one of
them. It's pseudo-anonymous at best. You should consider accepting the open-
source, community-driven, private criptocurrency Monero that has been around
for many years now. If you have plans on adopting Monero, send me a message
and I'll be glad to guide you on the right direction.

------
BusinessInsider
Nice, but they really should actually use Bitcoin cash.

Legacy Bitcoin fees can be higher than their actual monthly plans.

------
Strategizer
They have been accepting Bitcoin for a long time already, now its just
integrated better.

The whole talk about "freedom and privacy" in relation to Bitcoin made me a
bit nauseous. These are tech guys. It destroys trust for them to be blabbering
nonsense about privacy like this.

------
TheSpecialist
If I go for the highest paid tier, it comes with Proton VPN. Ist that only ONE
VPN user or do all users of that tier get to use ProtonVPN?

~~~
bartbutler
You get 10 VPN connections which you can distribute among your users however
you see fit.

------
thinbeige
PR. Nothing else. Who wants to pay with Bitcoin when Bitcoin is skyrocketing
like crazy?

~~~
ringaroundthetx
everyone that pays with bitcoin now that everything is cheaper?

yeah it goes counter to all of the anti-deflationary schools of economics, but
when have economists ever gotten actual human behavior right?

~~~
thinbeige
Nobody does. And this is the problem with having no inflation. Every economy
needs a slight inflation, otherwise people stop consuming, instead save all
their money and it gets worse => deflation.

Bitcoin equals gold, nobody uses Bitcoin to consume anything. I don't know
which human behavior you refer to.

~~~
DINKDINK
Your argument is: "Why would anyone spend any money if it's worth tomorrow?!"
to support a pro-inflation argument

The counterargument / parallel reality in an inflationary world is: "Why would
anyone accept any money if it's worth less tomorrow?!"

The only difference between the two paradigms is that in the later, the
currency creators have the power and in the former, the currency owners have
the power. It is no coincidence that the financial institution has chosen to
be in control of inflation and extract the wealth first, via seignorage, of
currency inflation.

~~~
dmoy
> Why would anyone accept any money if it's worth less tomorrow

I mean they sort of don't, in the case of rapid inflation. See e.g. Brazil
decades ago, with payment delays abound all over.

But that's not what we're talking about for a healthy economy, with a
relatively small steady inflation rate. Very different.

