Bitcoin Needs a "Tip Jar" Widget system like Flattr

[Anonymous]

A lot of people refuse to use paypal on principle.

This makes me laugh -

PayPal offers support for Micropayments to merchants for US to US, GB to GB, AU to AU, and EU to EU transactions for Business and Premier accounts. This feature is offered at a special rate of 5% + $0.05 per transaction

The only thing that isnt micro about this is their fees lol.

[Bruce Wagner]

Ok.  I just posted my piece on the Flattr forum......

Here:   http://forum.flattr.net/showthread.php?tid=550&pid=3489#pid3489

Get over there, Register, and Reply to that thread. 

We MUST make our voices heard over there!

I know from experience, companies recognize that, "For every one person who speaks up about something, there are at least 200 more who said nothing."

We need to be 200 who SPOKE UP and demanded Bitcoin at Flattr.

They know that 200 mouths asking for Bitcoin, represents 200 times 200....  That's 40,000 Bitcoin users.

GET OVER THERE AND POST NOW.

[S3052]

Just posted and on top, I have sent them a private message:

"Hello,

I recently joined flattr and I really love the idea.

However, the payment options you offer have a fundamental flaw: They are all too expensive as they charge huge fees.

Please have a look at BITCOINS, as this has all the advantages you need PLUS the benefit of 0% transaction costs. There are increasingly more people supporting it, see

http://forum.flattr.net/showthread.php?tid=550&pid=3492#pid3492


By when can I expect you to enable BITCOINS? I am sure that this is a big opportunity to get flattr even much more widespread.

Cheers!"



Their e-mail address is   forum@flattr.com

[ribuck]

... PLUS the benefit of 0% transaction costs ...

People should stop saying this, because it simply isn't true. Instead, who not say something like "negligible transaction costs", or "most transactions have zero cost".

[S3052]

fine with me.. in the world of marketing, you'd execute it like:

0% transaction costs*


*most transactions have zero cost
 or

*with the use of ... most transactions have costs below 0.01%

[Bruce Wagner]

Actually, from my readings, my understanding is that SOMEDAY, once most of the Bitcoins have already been created, a new incentive comes from staying online with bitcoin.  

At that time.... A tiny <0.01 transaction fee could be paid for expedited processing.  

It is my understanding that such a -- they call it a "transaction fee" -- is and ALWAYS WILL BE optional.  

Because it's optional, I would not even Call it a transaction fee.  I'd call that an OPTIONAL RUSH PROCESSING fee.

If it works the way I understand it to work.   I still would describe that as ZERO transaction fees.

Describing what will happen after 2033, when all 21 million bitcoins are in circulation and bitcoin generating has ceased,

"There will likely ALWAYS be nodes willing to process transactions for free." ---Satoshi, in his description of the design of the system

In my book -- even as technical as you wanna get -- that's called:   "Zero Transaction Fees"

( By definition, real transaction fees are not optional.  And they don't buy faster processing speed. )

To be 100% accurate,  we should NEVER call it a "transaction fee".   We should call it an "OPTIONAL highest priority processing fee".    After all, That's what it is.

And if you're going to tell people about it, please explain to them that it's totally unnecessary -- especially before 2033, and that none of us have ever paid it.

[ribuck]

... none of us have ever paid it ...

Again that's simply not true. The standard bitcoin software can and often does pay the fee (for large transactions) if the node that hashes the transaction charges the fee (as the standard client will do if it is generating).

I'm happy with phrases like "Bitcoin transactions are near enough to free", but not phrases like "There is never a transaction fee".

[ploum]

Just posted my answer and suggestion on the Flattr forum :
http://forum.flattr.net/showthread.php?tid=550&pid=3495#pid3495

Brucewagner > If I understand you well, all you want is a Flattr that you could pay with btc. It involves developing the whole software, it's not trivial IMHO.

[Anonymous]

Why cant bitmail be used for this?



http://www.bitcoinmail.com/

You flattr them and at the end of the month they get a bitmail with bitcoins attached. All they need to do is keep a track of the amounts then send an email. Everyone has an email address.


Im sure if the folks at bitmail could be contacted they would help plug flattr into the system. All flattr has to do is send emails ,how hard is that?lol

[Bruce Wagner]

I think, by putting all of our collective heads together here, we're getting closer and closer to a brilliant idea.    

Flattr wants Euros in, and Euros out.  

PayPal provides that service for them just fine right now.

Moneybookers does too.

From what the admin of the Flattr forum seems to be saying is:

If there were a "payment processor" who accepted Bitcoin, yet provided Euros to us,... we could pretty easily ADD ONE MORE PAYMENT PROCESSOR.  

I just today contacted the founder of MtGox.    I told him:  

MtGox could be "the PayPal of Bitcoin"....

If MtGox could add a Bitcoin --> Euro trading capabilities,  AND

Flattr could be convinced to add MtGox as another "payment processor"...

You could "charge up" your Flattr account with:

  - PayPal
  - Moneybookers   or
  - MtGox

.....paying in Bitcoin, but Flattr receiving it in Euros (if they select MtGox).

Meanwhile,  the recipient of donations could also select TO BE PAID through:

  - PayPal
  - Moneybookers   or
  - MtGox

......being paid in Bitcoin (if they select MtGox).   Or in MtGox-Euros if they prefer.

[ribuck]

Bruce, that's the way to do it for sure. Well done for working that out.

There would be a fair bit of integration needed between Flattr and MtGox (because Flattr won't want "Gox Euros", they might prefer a monthly bank transfer or something) but there's a real synergy between Bitcoin and Flattr and it would be fabulous to see this happen.

[ploum]

I think, by putting all of our collective heads together here, we're getting closer and closer to a brilliant idea.    

Flattr wants Euros in, and Euros out.  

PayPal provides that service for them just fine right now.

Moneybookers does too.

From what the admin of the Flattr forum seems to be saying is:

If there were a "payment processor" who accepted Bitcoin, yet provided Euros to us,... we could pretty easily ADD ONE MORE PAYMENT PROCESSOR.  

I just today contacted the founder of MtGox.    I told him:  

MtGox could be "the PayPal of Bitcoin"....

If MtGox could add a Bitcoin --> Euro trading capabilities,  AND

Flattr could be convinced to add MtGox as another "payment processor"...

 

It's perhaps just me but I thought that everybody knew that. It seems trivial that what Bitcoin need is a way to convert bitcoin to euros and back. I realize now that, indeed, I've never saw a discussion about that on this forum.

As far as I understand, MtGox is currently only making the link between bitcoin buyer and bitcoin seller. In order to become the BitPal, MtGox would have to :

- establish a fixed rate for everybody
- establish a stock of both BTC and €. (it means taking a lot more risks)

If MtGox would allow to pay directly for BTC and retrieve them, without any hassle and with a simple VISA card, that would be awesome.

A lot more website would also accept BTC if they knew that they could easily convert BTC for good old euro on their VISA account in a few clicks.

[Anonymous]

https://www.bitcoinexchange.com/

Bitcoin Exchange already supports Euros. You can buy or sell them via sms or bank account within the EU so all it requires is for flattr to set up an account there.

[bober182]

http://fivegrinder.com/

[Bruce Wagner]

Bitcoin Exchange already supports Euros. You can buy or sell them via sms or bank account within the EU so all it requires is for flattr to set up an account there.

As far as I can tell, BitcoinExchange doesn't seem to offer "accounts" of any kind.   They simply allow you to initiate a Sell Bitcoins transaction, and ask you for your banking details to wire money to you....  not to pay someone else.

http://fivegrinder.com/

I keep going to FiveGrinder, and I must be slow...   I still cannot figure out WHAT that site is....   What is it?   What is it about?   for?

That's one site that really really needs an "About" or "FAQ".

[Bimmerhead]

bitcoin tip jar, right here: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2877.0

[swinewine]

Hi Guys,

My name is Brian and I am one of the founders of the website http://www.youtipit.org. We started working on this project a few months back with the goal of turning everyone who contributes content online into an "Online street performer": the idea being if you see something you like, you tip it. Originally we tried using Euros/Dollars but it was impossible to get around the legal issues. Fortunately we discovered bitcoin and we now use it as our base tipping currency. Soon after we went live someone posted a tweet that we were "The flattr of Bitcoins". Of course we dont have any of the money or the backing that Flattr has but I guess we are trying to do something similar: reward people who do good things online.

On our site we have an automated bitcoin purchasing system (currently using paypal, this will have to change)  but users can also send in their coins to top up their accounts. After that they can tip their coins to other members or send the coins out of their account to an address of their choice. We allow the embedding of media such as video into their "Tip Jars" or Junkets as we call them.

I came across this topic recently and I feel some of you guys might be interested in checking it out. Please be aware that the site is far from perfect but it is operating quite well. I would be interested to know what you think and what suggestions you might have.

BrianC

[maurice]

The site looks great. Any plans to do something similar to the Facebook 'like' button where site owners can embed YouTipIt in their site using an Iframe.

[ploum]

Alexz: It's very easy. Bitcoin client use RPC ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/API_reference_%28JSON-RPC%29 ) so, basically, it goes like this:

- You should have a bitcoind running on your server.
- When an user want to send bitcoin to the server to credit his account, you ask bitcoind for a new address (you know, like 18Trqk3tKkF8vNoW6am5rx8K6wUSQAqo1q ).
- When the address receive some bitcoins and there's enough confirmation, you credit the account of that user (minus a fee if you want).

From that point, bitcoin is not used anymore. Each time an user "flatt" or "tip" another, you just change a number in database and change another one in the database of the receiving user.

- When an user want to withdraw, you simply ask him for his bitcoin address. Once received, you send to bitcoind a command asking to send XX money to the given address.

There's no rocket science involved at all. I was willing to develop this project with a Django website (and providing hosting and everything myself) but I have absolutely no CSS/JS/graphic skills, which make it very hard for me.

[ploum]

ploum, thanks for the info!

So to receive a payment from a user to fill up his account I basically just generate a text string with bitcoin address and the user takes it from there, correct?

Yes. Just be sure to keep in your DB which addresses are attached to which users. In fact, you could have only one address per user. That's how bitmarket.eu works currently.

And then I should wait for confirmation - how long, usually? 10 minutes?

So I guess I need a cron job probably to poll the server for confirmations...

How long depends on how many confirmations you want. I think there's a callback system, so you basically send to bitcoin a command and tell it: "run this command each time you receive money".


So, when bitcoind receive 10btc on address XXXX, it tells you "received 10BTC for XXXX". In your internal DB, you know that XXXX is linked to ploum so you credit ploum with 10 more BTC.