6 replies to this topic

[WreckWench]

So its clear that digital currency is the wave of the future. Over 30% of the under 30 crowd uses it regularly. Nearly every major country is trying to jockey to have a central bank owned digital currency. The current platforms are secure from govt intervention so much more appealing accordingly.

 

So here is my thought... can we can accept 'donations' in crypto and/or perhaps dues or even use a OTP option or even eventually trips if it becomes more stable?  If we don't do a fully integrated solution but rather an offline option then we might be able to accept it sooner vs later.

 

I am seeing that woo commerce integrates it now and others are moving towards it if they haven't already.

 

Anyone looked at it more closely? Any ideas on how we could easily accept it via a workaround since integration will be tough... at least initially?

 

Thank you for your input! Kamala

 

 

Top 10 Companies accepting Crypto including Overstock.com and Expedia!  HERE

Which currency to accept? HERE

How to accept donations?  HERE

How to accept payments?  HERE

Step by Step to accepting crypto?   HERE

 

There are tons more articles... this was a cursory search and there are tons of articles!

 

 

 

 

 

• Crypto itself is increasingly mainstream. According to a recent Pew survey, 16% of Americans use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Those 33 million Americans are disproportionately young—31% of Americans under age 30 use crypto. 
• Why do people buy crypto? Many see it as a way to protect against a falling dollar—for them, crypto is a digital gold—one that is as anonymous as real gold or real cash, but one that can never be seized.

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

Integration will be very tough, I haven't looked into that though.  I had some up close experience with it last year and learned a lot.  I ended up with several account last year and ultimately liquidated and got out.

 

Biggest things I learned are:

1) The value changes daily, sometimes dramatically, unless you only accept US Coin or similar which follow the US dollar or some other hard currency.  Check out the cost of Bitcoin over the last year.

2) It's incredibly easy to use, once understood, and bypasses exchange rates and income tax.  Not easy to get an account setup or figure out though.

3) There is absolutely no protection in it since it essentially can't be tracked back to a person.  You put it in the wrong account and it is gone forever. 

4) Spammers prefer it since it can't be tracked and that is probably what has driven the price up.  Virtually all online scams use crypto now.

5) I'm not sure how you track where money came from unless it is integrated so you can catch a member name before sending them to the form.

6) There is no way to refund anything without an integration

7) crypto knows no borders. It is like a world currency.  Also means it is unregulatable.

 

There are two ways to transfer money.  1) by QR code or 2) by account text code.  Only an email is required beyond that and it doesn't have to match the email on the account., 

 

The text code is about 60 characters and virtually impossible to type in so it is cut and paste deal.  If you type in the code wrong and it matches another random code then the money is gone into thin air.  POOF.  you have no idea who got it.  None of it is really regulated, much like the rest of the internet, and is very anonymous.

 

You won't get a human name for who sent the money in either case, just the huge account text code.  So keeping records will be nightmare without an integration to capture the data upfront.

 

They pay a fee to send money and the receiver doesn't pay the fee.  The fee is determined by the senders account and can change daily as well as by exchange so if you want a specific amount it will be virtually impossible to tell them how much to send.  These big companies are probably padding costs or playing games with taxes to cover that.  There are hundreds of exchanges ranging from legitimate to very shady.  None of them know account numbers from other exchanges.  You will have no idea what exchange they are using either.

 

If you lose access to your exchange account, it is not just a simple password reset to get it back and there is no number to call.  It more like 15 random codes that you need to save upfront.  If even one of them is wrong and you lose access then you will never get your money back.

 

In short its basically designed for criminals and they love crypto.

 

The kids under 30 don't look at any of this.  They just look at how easy it is.  These are the same kids that put all of their life online and think that is just perfectly safe.  Granted its a powerful demographic but that doesn't mean it is safe or good idea.

 

Having said all that, I will say it is the future.  Once governments move to it then it will a cardless society but everything that makes it desirable will be gone, at least with the gov't backed stuff.  My bet is the govt backed crypto will fail and everyone will still use the unregulated stuff since it is impossible to shut down or track.  That will be a bad day for the world economy.  I'm hoping to be gone by then.

[Blue151]

Agree with everything Scott said above.   It needs to stabilize.  Because of the big swings in value, someone could literally pay you $1,000 for a trip, and it be worth $500 the next day.  Or maybe it is $1,500 and you make money.  Are you willing to gamble like that with the amount of money you deal with?

 

Although completely unrelated to Crypto are all the other online services like Venmo and Zelle that are popping up.   These are tied directly to US bank accounts/credit cards.  (maybe more than just US, not sure)  Anyway, people can send you money directly from the App and it is like sending a check or using a credit card.  The user (sender) picks which account they use to "fund" the transaction.  If they use a credit card, they pay the fee.  You don't pay the fee it just shows up in your account and then you can transfer it to your bank.

 

As I understand these, you have pay a few $$ (%) to use them as a business, but not as a person.  Since so many people are registering the "Business" under a personal account, they are starting to watch the transactions, and my guess to figure out a way to "tax" them so they get their fee.  So I don't recommend it for SD.com.  But it might be a good option for you to use when you *loan* people money to cover tips etc on a trip.  As this is a loan, and checks are always written to you as a person - not as a SingleDivers transaction, you could use this to get your money back right away.  No more waiting, hoping they send you a check.  No more getting your mail to get the check so you can go to the bank to deposit the checks.  It is **really** easy to use both for you and the person who owes you money.  I think as Venmo/Zelle become more popular more people are going to want to pay you this way for you "Loans" on trips or if you sell something to someone like a Paralenz/Dive light/Etc.  I know I definitely would.

[WreckWench]

Good insight.

 

I believe that the unregulated is a hedge against inflation because as govt's control currency...they can manipulate as well. Anything that is NOT manipulable is indeed the only true holder of value. Sadly even gold and silver which was once a true holder of value is now no longer as its manipulated in the paper markets.   

 

But to the discussion at hand.. I understand that if someone did pay for a trip with it... I know it would greatly vary. I also do not think that most people would pay using it but the few that did might be an interesting way to experiment and/or learn.

In an environment where it is basically going up... I suspect that most people are 'buying' it and not 'spending it'.  Unless they are perhaps spending gains?

 

Scott sounds like you have done some delving into it and I'd be interested in talking to your more.

 

Thanks for all the valuable input. Kamala

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

People are spending it or websites wouldn't be supporting it.  I bought a computer 3 years ago and they accepted bitcoin at that time.  These computers cost more than your average trip but their customer demographic was mainly "off the grid" tech people also so that may say something.

 

There are some investors but most people are hiding money there.  it does not take long to figure out that there are better investments.  It was intended as peer to peer payment system like Zelle but has grown out of control.  I personal think Crypto has the potential to destroy the entire world financial system in time but that is just me.  Having dealt with it I rank it up there with social media as being a good way to distribute news.  We all know how that turned out.

 

Like Pam says, Zelle is probably a good alternative to the website. With a small alteration you could move off of Hika and onto Zelle.  It would be more work but you just be transferring work instead of creating it.  Would take some thought but may be worth thinking about how to do the forms but it is within reach.

 

The way it would work would be like it use to be when people posted they wanted to join.  They post, you make an invoice and send it to them by email. They put the member name and invoice number in the memo line.  Accountant does really do not do anything more than now.  Most member post everything they are buying anyway so it won't be a lot more posts.  I don't think there is any charge and most banks accept Zelle.  its pretty universal in the US. They can see their payments for at least a year.  You just need to make the invoices.  Venmo would work similarly.

 

My dog sitter uses Zelle and Venmo and she does more transactions in a day than you do in week.  It's doable.

 

See the payment form in the attachment.  That is at my bank's website.

 

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

The fact that crypto is unregulated has nothing at all to do with its value.  That may create an incentive to own but does not create value, at least not in any economic sense.  Incentive does not equal value.  Air outside is free, you could not sell it if you tried, but is probably the most desirable thing on earth and you are highly incentivized to breathe it.  You have to put it in a tank for it have any value and that is only because there are a limited number to tanks and it takes work to fill them.

 

Value is generated by the fact that there is a limited amount in existence, it being considered a desirable product, and there is work involved in creating it in a tradable form.  When bitcoin was first created a set numbers of coins were allowed.  Once those coins are mined out there will be no more.  This is what creates the value.  The mine is almost dry at this point so the value is going up.  The fact that its not regulated might make I desirable to basically criminals but really nobody else since this is very dangerous and only serves the purpose of hiding money.

 

The analogy used to describe crypto mining is a gold miner.  The miner goes down into the mine daily and digs the gold out or physically pulls it out of the river/stream.  There is only a limited amount of gold and it takes a lot of work to produce it.  The amounts extracted are low but the properties of gold are desirable to industry and jewelers so it has value.  The cost is based on market and the cost of the work to produce it.

 

Crypto coins are completely made up, they don't physically exist.  There is a SINGLE ledger with only a certain amount of coins allowed on it.  This ledger has every bitcoin transaction on it in an anonymous form.  Computers do work to solve problems generated by the bitcoin source just like the miner working in the mine.  If they solve enough problems (burn enough electricity), they are rewarded with a coin.  This is exactly like a player getting a new life in a video game if they live long enough or uncover the right hidden gem except there is no human player.  The computer is the miner and the work is electricity burned.  One coin is taken off the available coins ledger and put on the mined coins ledger when enough work is done.  That coin is assigned to the account of whoever owned the mining rig that did the necessary work.  As the number of unmined coins drops the problems get harder to solve and the rate the coins are mined decreases.  Electrical power drain increases so the cost to produce the coins increases.  This increases the value of the coins over time.  Almost all bitcoins are mined so they are very expensive to mine now. The cost is on the electric bill of whoever owns the rig.  Some locations have banned crypto mining since the power drains are causing large scale blackouts.  I won't even talk about the blockchain that secures it all since only Pam would care and she probably already knows how it works.  It's pretty cool though.

 

Crypto is basically an economic version of Sim City being played out in the real world.  It is essentially a multiplayer computer game that came to life and people don't know they are playing it.  If it sounds like The Matrix, then yep its not far from that in some senses.  Most crypto transactions are done by scammers in other countries.  The rise of internet crime pretty much parallels the rise of crypto.  Crypto makes it easy to steal and hide out anywhere in the world.  But if it is unregulated then it is unsustainable and will eventually crash economic systems.  Think Lionfish in the Caribbean.  They are nice in a controlled environment but a disaster in the wild.

 

BTW the creator of bitcoin is unknown.  Online he is only known as Satoshi Nakamoto but that is a hacker name.  This should be enough by itself to tell you to stay the heck away.  Even the creator doesn't want to take credit for this success which is really a disaster waiting to happen.  Hackers always take credit, at least in the underground community.  But this guy wants to hide from it.

 

https://en.wikipedia...atoshi_Nakamoto

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

Almost Worst Case Scenario:

A customer tries to pay by bitcoin and they honestly send it to the wrong account so you don't get the money.  They get pissed and bad mouth you on Facebook along with screenshots of the money leaving their account.  Since its all anonymous you can't prove that you don't own the account they sent it to.  You look guilty.  Either you pay out or you are possibly out of business.  You pay out and now others play the same game.  You cannot contest it in any case.

 

Worst Case Scenario:

A competitor or someone who feels you crossed them or just doesn't like you sets up two bitcoin accounts and arranges a trip with you.  They pay the money to their own bitcoin account and say they pay you.  You can't prove they own that account or that you don't.  You look guilty.  Then they merciless badmouth you on every platform they can find to run you out of business.  It's all done in spite. 

 

These are both extremely easy things to do with crypto and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.  That is why scammers love crypto, it makes their job easy.  In both of these cases you are going to wish crypto was regulated.  These big shops have a team of people to stop this from happening.