

How to accept bitcoin donations on your website - barmstrong
http://blog.coinbase.com/post/41907755756/allowing-custom-donation-amounts

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neya
Hello HN community, I'm just curious about the rise of this new BitCoin
currency. I'm currently developing an Saas product myself, so I'm actually
torn between choosing various currency processors/vendors.

Can someone explain as to

1) Why and when one should use BitCoin?

2) What advantages does BitCoin have over traditional payment processors like
PayPal/Stripe?

3) Is there any legal downside of using BitCoin? (For example, I read
somewhere that Bitcoins are used for Money Laundering and the governments are
actively monitoring anyone using BitCoins)

4) How much do you save (if at all) by going with BitCoin instead of someone
popular like PayPal/Stripe?

Thanks!

~~~
ig1
Unless you've got a userbase that are significant users of bitcoin (which I'm
guessing is unlikely for most SaaS) I wouldn't worry about supporting it. Wait
until you have active demand from your userbase before adding another payment
mechanism especially one which essentially gives you a huge amount of forex
risk.

~~~
neya
Thanks for the clarification :)

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runn1ng
Well... I know I might sound a bit rude, but why use coinbase instead of just
putting your Bitcoin address online?

~~~
samrat
Probably to reduce some friction from the process. They also don't charge a
transaction fee(as noted in another comment), so i could see myself using this
on my site.

Of course a much useful service would be something like flattr. IIRC, There
was some talk about them starting to accept bitcoins but i haven't heard about
that lately.

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redegg
For those wondering to accept Bitcoin or not, the price of Bitcoin has been
bullish the past few weeks.

[http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg90zig6-hourztgSzm...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg90zig6-hourztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzps)

~~~
MacsHeadroom
What does that have to do with accepting anonymous donations?

Presumably accepting donations in bitcoins can only be beneficial. Accepting
payments may or may not be a different story.

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chrisballinger
I requested the adjustable donation feature yesterday, thanks! Here is an
example of it in action: <https://chatsecure.org>

One thing I noticed is that very rarely the button image doesn't load and is
replaced by a default Bootstrap navigation bar inside the button frame
instead. Might be something to investigate.

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arkonaut
This could be really cool for this post from earlier today:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5141995>

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e1ven
Very neat. Is there a demo site of this someplace, outside of the screenshots?
Do coinbase still charge a fee?

~~~
barmstrong
Demo: <https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons>

We charge 1% when you buy or sell bitcoin (by connecting any U.S. bank
account). Sending BTC-to-BTC is free (we pay the minimal bitcoin fees on your
behalf).

We also released a nice API: <https://github.com/coinbase/coinbase-ruby>

~~~
toomim
So there's no fee when a customer buys something from a merchant with bitcoin
using the coinbase API?

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slosh
awesome feature

