Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

Why I prefer bitcoin donations over Euros

Please read the two updates below.  So far none of the crypto currencies that were donated were turned into cash.  I'll post more as decisions are made.

 

You may be wondering what is a Bitcoin?  You can find the answer to that question in the video below.  It is a digital currency.  As of the time of the writing of this blog, one Bitcoin is trading between $128.84 and $147.65 on different exchanges.  I put up a donations page on  our parish website and began accepting Bitcoin.  We got a little more than 0.488 Bitcoins donated to us.  I figured that the easiest way to exchange them for dollars was on eBay.  In less than a day we were able to exchange the Bitcoin donations for $100 USD.  

 

While it was easy to convert our Bitcoins its extremely difficult and time consuming to exchange the Euros and other world currencies  that are given to us.   In order to exchange them first we have to figure out what type of money is given to us (euro, yen, DOP, Argentine Peso, etc.) and then find someone who takes them.  Then we have to drive were they are and pay fees to exchange them.  It's not worth the hassle since we do not get too many foreign coins and as a result they sit and collect dust for a long time.  Would you rather have a Euro that sits on the desk or a Bitcoin that takes a day to exchange for USD?  You can donate your digital (also known as
crypto) currencies to Saint John's by clicking here.  Can we get 1,000 Bitcoins donated to us?  

 

update: 10/14/2013

The buyer claimed that it was an unauthorized transaction and opened a claim to get their $100 back through paypal.  I sent proof the Bitcoin was sent.  This can be seen here: https://blockchain.info/address/16vpbUdqZNLfdAymtRLAinGbHXgKSXgqjW  I also shipped a printed copy of the blockchain.info and  piece of paper with the Bitcoin logo on it to him which was part of the auction to fulfill ebay rules that they receive something physical.  I'll blog about the result after paypal resolves its investigation.

 update: 10/17/2013.  I've been able to exchange our Bitcoins for USD successfully with coinbase.com  We also got some Litecoin donations which I will trade for BTC on crypto-trade.com and then transfer the btc to coinbase and convert it into USD.  Today alone we made about $50 from generous people who have donated Bitcoin.  I have not even looked at our Litecoin account yet.  Bitcoin is definitely a good way to receive donations with less fees than paypal.  (At the time of writing paypal was charging 2.3% plus .30.  So for example the approximately $50 we got today in donations would of resulted in our church receiving $48.25.  That would have cost us $1.75.  With CoinBase it was less than .75.  Which would you rather pay?

update: 10/22/2013 Well after doing some more research it seems like what happened to me has happened to many people.  Other people have bloged about the same problem. today I was notified that paypal sided in our favor.  Although the seller said their bitcoin purchase was unauthorized, their was no evidence.  Thus we successfully converted the .488 bitcoin into $100.  Keep in mind we were able to send a tracking number because part of the auction stated that they would receive a picture of a bitcoin.

 

 

 

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