In the few times I'm looking for information on Reddit, it always makes me happy to see their on-site tipping bot is being used to tip helpful posts (although
ChangeTip shut down). And every time again, I wonder why Bitcointalk doesn't have it.
Bitcointalk is
the forum for Bitcoin enthusiasts, in my opinion a tip feature would be a much needed addition. I'm not the only one, it has been suggested in the past, but all threads about tipping on the forum are now at least several years old. My main reason to bring this up again, is that it's a nice social addition to the forum. One of the arguments against it used to be that you could tip anyone directly. With rising transaction fees and Bitcoin value, it's now too expensive to send a small tip on-chain.
I've collected pros and cons from old threads, and added some comments to them. My comments under the quotes aren't meant to be a response to the posts from years ago, but meant to reflect the current situation).
ProsEvery user of the forum has a BTC balance, which is like an online ewallet where he can store his bitcoins
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next to each post, there is a button - when you click it you send 0.01BTC from your wallet to the author of this post.
At the time piotr_n posted this, 0.01BTC was worth about $0.06.
its much easier and efficient to just click a button, rather than do a bitcoin transaction.
This could be the start of a future Lighting Network node ran by Bitcointalk.
And the forum can outsource handling of the wallet/deposits to some other, trusted person or company
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the forum would have no liability here, only providing the user interface.
I don't think the total amount would be that huge to have a trust issue here - rather technical issues.
But if any forum in the world should be able to deal with the technical issues of implementing bitcoin micro-transfers, I would say bitcointalk.org is a good place to start. 
If the user allows it, the total amount tipped to him could be displayed publicly as a sort of "rep."
Although I like the idea, this can be taken advantage of, just like alt-accounts can leave fake feedback.
It would make tipping easier and probably encourage more of it.
Theymos, I'm curious why you see micropayments (or forum credits) as low priority.
I agree in the sense that there are bigger problems to solve around bitcointalk, but if this can encourage more quality posts then it lifts the forum as a whole.
I'm all for it. I think it would be a nice way to reward helpful or quality posters instead of just saying 'thanks' etc. It would also encourage the flow of bitcoins and help some of the newbies aquire their first bits instead of wasting time on faucets etc.
There's likely 'no real need' for many things but it is a nice addition. How many people will actually boot up their wallet to copy and paste an address and send a tip here? A third party application just makes it more convenient and a bit of fun, not to mention you'll actually know where the money came from. I think it can also act as a nice 'plus 1' feature but one where people can actually reward with something of worth to show their appreciation.
The main feature of changetip is its a social and public appreciation.
ConsThe problem is then that the forum must serve as a bank, a responsibility I am sure they do not want.
If Reddit can do it, it must be possible here too.
Just seems like something else that could go wrong.
I don't find it hard to copy-paste an address from someone's profile or signature.
The problem is that we'd need to pay BTC into an account to pay tips out of, similar to how the Reddit bitcointip bot handles finances, and I don't think Theymos wants anything to do with being responsible for user funds; understandably so.
Yeah, seems a bit of risk and a faf when you can just easily send people the cash without worrying about third parties.
It's no longer possible to send $0.06 through Bitcoin, even if you pay the fee, the receiving amount (1200 Satoshi) is lower than the fee needed to use it again. A tip bot would make this possible.
Maybe something like this is coming in the next forum software
I hope not. It's something which isn't needed and would be a waste of time. It's simple to copy a address and send it with a Bitcoin wallet. Least there is no security vulnerabilities to consider here at the forum.
Pretty sure this will never happen. I don't think theymos wants the forum to be holding money for random people.
Mods don't want to do this cause it would make Bitcointalk a target for thieves looking to make a quick buck.
People have had addresses in their signatures since the forum first started. Almost no one uses them for donations. Donations are popular on Reddit only because:
- Being able to send money quickly and easily is a novelty to the people there.
- People use donations as a tool to advertise Bitcoin.
Here, people are used to Bitcoin and there's no need to advertise. If a donation system was added, I predict only a small increase in donations compared to the current situation with bare addresses.
I've thought about that before, but I think that there might be legal problems with that. It might make the forum a "money transmitter".
Would this also be a problem if we're talking about less than a dollar per user on average? Or if an external party handles it?
No one should... it's a total waste of time, resources and requires addition unneeded trust.
Copy, paste and send like normal fucking humans!
ill say it first, this is an absolutely terrible idea imo, it would cause this forum to become a cesspool of begging spam and would just make more work for the mods. "tip pls" "click tip me" "pls need $$$"
you think people complain a lot about signatures? imagine the complaints that would come against the tip button.
No one tips! It'll be completely pointless, and unused. I haven't come across a single post that someone tipped another person, or gave away coins for free.
(P.s. I'm sure they are out there, you don't have to search the whole forum to prove me wrong. But it's not very common.)
Other thoughs (quotes could slightly be taken out of context, click the link for full context):
I had an idea about that, though I'm not sure whether I'll do it. The forum could accept BTC and in return give "forum credit", which could not ever be withdrawn for BTC, but which could be used for ads and donations. Since forum credit has value, a market would develop with an exchange rate somewhat less than 1 BTC per BTC of forum credit. A micropayment system could be based on forum credit; receiving 1 BTC of forum credit would be just a less convenient and more centralized way of receiving ~0.95 BTC.
Micropayments are a very low priority in any case, though.
Bitcoin micropayments (tips) works on sites like Reddit, I believe, because of the visibility of the tips made against each comment or post. So as a community a new ethos is formed around tipping quality discussion and helpful/meaningful posts.
I've thought about this before as a forum feature. It would be kind of cool, but I haven't done it for these reasons:
- I predict that people won't use the feature very much. Donation addresses in signatures rarely receive much BTC. (Reddit's bitcointip will eventually lose popularity, I think.)
- If the donation amount is displayed, something needs to prevent people from inflating the number by donating to themselves.
- Running a Bitcoin client requires quite a bit of work to make sure the client is updated, it doesn't die, most of the BTC is held in cold storage, etc.
- I don't want anyone to use the forum as an E-Wallet. That's not the forum's purpose, and there might be legal risks associated with doing this.
I would like the money I donated to the forum go toward something like this.
I am sure that this would create a lot of scams.....similar to those that are on reddit.
In case you were wondering how the scams work:
-user A makes a "good" post/point
-user B tips user A a lot of bitcoin for the good post (user A is user B's alt)
-user B tips many of his other alts, appearing to be very generous
-user C is compelled to tip user B (who is unrelated to user B)
This would also create massive amounts of spam with people asking to be tipped for their shitty posts and people begging others who have been generous in the past
The tipping would just be for novelty. The reason it is popular on reddit is because it introduced people to Bitcoin that had never heard of it before. Everyone on this forum has heard about it so not much point.
I could see some uses for it in the Gambling section for games and sports picks though.
There are a lot of people on the forum that strongly believe that you should always 100% control the private keys to your bitcoin. Any tipping feature that is "on forum" would obviously not allow that. Some people could leave a tab open for their blockchain.info wallet, or could leave multibit open all the time. I really don't think copying and pasting an address is that big of a deal to someone when they care enough to be giving away money.
Most people won't care that much about keeping a tiny amount of btc with a third party to tip, but if they do then those people just wouldn't likely be interested in using it anyway (also sometimes it's just not possible to control your keys eg on an exchange). I'd certainly tip people if it was implemented but I'm not going to log into my wallet every time to do so just to send a bit of dust. The transaction fees wouldn't be worth it and that's where microtipping comes in.
There are pros and cons to it. I'd like to see it implemented on a trial basis at least and I'm sure it could be added and removed quite easily. It would be nice to be able to tip quality or helpful contributions and would hopefully encourage and reward quality posters, but of course some people would ask for a tip for some rubbish. Any beggars should be dealt with in the normal way though and have the posts deleted.
Anyone else finds it ironic that THE forum on BTC doesn't integrate tipping?This Forum Should Pioneer Micro-Tipping 
Poll
