New to bitcoin

[alittlegreen]

It would work the same as changing any currency into any other currency. You need to work with a currency exchange. If you're looking for anonymity there are several cash-by-mail services such as mine, bitcoin2cash.com. If you're looking for convenience there other others that will send you USD or Euros by wire transfer, or other forms of payments. Look at the trade wiki for the different exchanges being operated.

Ok your still talking over my head.  So your saying bitcoin is a currency that has to be exchanged?  I am not following you.....sorry  How would my example above work?  there money comes to me in bitcoins?  Do they have to understand it all too just to make a simple donation?

Anonymity is not an issue

[1714793735]

1714793735

[1714793735]

1714793735

[1714793735]

1714793735

[1714793735]

1714793735

[1714793735]

1714793735

[NghtRppr]

It would work the same as changing any currency into any other currency. You need to work with a currency exchange. If you're looking for anonymity there are several cash-by-mail services such as mine, bitcoin2cash.com. If you're looking for convenience there other others that will send you USD or Euros by wire transfer, or other forms of payments. Look at the trade wiki for the different exchanges being operated.

Ok your still talking over my head.  So your saying bitcoin is a currency that has to be exchanged?  I am not following you.....sorry

Anonymity is not an issue

I'm sorry. Alright, since you don't care about anonymity, you would need to go to some place like mtgox.com and deposit your Bitcoins there. After they are deposited, list them for sale at the current bid price so you can sell them instantly. After you sell them, you will have USD in your account and you can withdraw it from there. Once you have USD you can convert them to whatever local currency you need.

[alittlegreen]

I'm sorry. Alright, since you don't care about anonymity, you would need to go to some place like mtgox.com and deposit your Bitcoins there. After they are deposited, list them for sale at the current bid price so you can sell them instantly. After you sell them, you will have USD in your account and you can withdraw it from there. Once you have USD you can convert them to whatever local currency you need.

Ok so I have to sell them for dollars first, not euros?

[Ricochet]

Ok I am blonde and NOT good at math so help me here.  My hubby and I are missionaries living in one country and working in about 14 others.  We travel constantly.  People mostly from America and Europe send us donations from time to time.  If I were to use Bitcoin how would this work?  How would I turn bitcoins to usable national currency like Euros.  and how would I deposit that money in my bank account?

For example: Right now I use Paypal, so a person in Montana sends me 100 dollars (through Paypal) and I accept it, exchange it to the 10 euros its worth (just kidding I know its worth a bit more then that) and withdraw it to my bank account.  How would that transaction work with bitcoin?

Blessings,
ALG

First things first, Bitcoin is a currency too, but in its infancy stages.  A usable currency, well, that's what we're trying to accomplish.

To be perfectly honest, there is little to be gained from accepting Bitcoins in your circumstance, other than the satisfaction of increasing awareness about the system (which of course we all appreciate).  Since you don't really care about anonymity, one of the main selling points of Bitcoin is gone.  Another major selling point is that Bitcoin is decentralized, meaning that PayPal/Visa/Discover etc can never shut you down if they feel like it (like they did with Wikileaks).  If your donations won't make PayPal shut you down, then that benefit doesn't help you much.

As others have mentioned, at the current stage you'll need a Bitcoin-to-local-currency exchange to make Bitcoin donations useful, unless you happen to want one of the services offered in our Marketplace forum, or if you choose to speculate and hold on to them and hope that the value of Bitcoin is going to be worth more in the future.  Your donators would also probably require a local-currency-to-Bitcoin exchange just to donate to you in the first place, so it's rather roundabout.  

In short, while we would highly appreciate it if you accepted Bitcoin as an option for donations, it's currently not feasible to use it as your only source.  We're still in the stage that increasing awareness is the best thing one can do.

--

On a personal note, I have much respect for missionaries because I believe that they have a positive net effect on the places they travel, religious debates aside.  Maybe I'm just biased because two of the most influential people in my growing life ended up becoming missionaries (you're not Mr. and Mrs. Voss right? hehe), but I just want to thank you for what you do.  

[sakaph]

eMansipater: Thank you very much for your explanation!

[eMansipater]

To be perfectly honest, there is little to be gained from accepting Bitcoins in your circumstance, other than the satisfaction of increasing awareness about the system (which of course we all appreciate).  Since you don't really care about anonymity, one of the main selling points of Bitcoin is gone.  Another major selling point is that Bitcoin is decentralized, meaning that PayPal/Visa/Discover etc can never shut you down if they feel like it (like they did with Wikileaks).  If your donations won't make PayPal shut you down, then that benefit doesn't help you much.

Although those are some reasons that people might use BitCoins, they're by no means the only ones.  For me, international usage is one of the primary applications that got me excited about BitCoin and I believe it could be the "killer app" for bitcoin eventually.  I also have very little interest in anonymity, and only like decentralization for its technical value.


@alittlegreen BitCoin will start to become practical for you to use when it starts to be accepted and exchanged in the countries where you work--then it will be a much cheaper way of transferring money to many countries than bank transfers or Western Union.  I'm kind of implicitly assuming here that at least some of those 15 countries you spend time in lack convenient financial access such as either all using the same currency or sharing a common banking system--if they're all EU member countries BitCoin probably won't help you that much for a long time.

But if my assumption is right then I would say BitCoin will probably be quite useful to you if it succeeds and becomes a bit more established.  Based on my own experience I suspect you currently travel with either US dollars or Euros and exchange them in local countries--BitCoin would essentially allow you to do the same thing without having to carry any actual currency on you because you would only have to get to an internet access location within each country and then would have access to unlimited BitCoin transactions.  This makes it a lot safer and could avoid strict currency import regulations that certain countries impose.  It would also reduce the costs of operating because the BitCoin network itself will always be very low on fees and will likely command a premium exchange rate similar to dollars and euros.  If it is even moderately successful BitCoin will probably start to replace Western Union, etc. as the primary method by which money is sent internationally because of the high fees of the latter, so many people will be happy to exchange it wherever you go.

For right now, Paypal is going to be simpler for you because most of your donors don't already use BitCoins.  They would have to convert into BitCoins and have you convert back out, which means the low internal fees don't help you.  But spread the word about bitcoins and how easy to use they are, especially in countries where financial services are harder to access!

eMansipater: Thank you very much for your explanation!

You're very welcome!

[Cryptoman]

BitCoin would essentially allow you to do the same thing without having to carry any actual currency on you because you would only have to get to an internet access location within each country and then would have access to unlimited BitCoin transactions.  This makes it a lot safer and could avoid strict currency import regulations that certain countries impose. 

That's an interesting selling point that I hadn't thought of before.

[Jaime Frontero]

BitCoin would essentially allow you to do the same thing without having to carry any actual currency on you because you would only have to get to an internet access location within each country and then would have access to unlimited BitCoin transactions.  This makes it a lot safer and could avoid strict currency import regulations that certain countries impose. 

That's an interesting selling point that I hadn't thought of before.

oh my, Cryptoman...

you've never tried to enter or return to the U.S. with $5,000.00 in cash?     heavens lad - you just haven't lived...

[MoonShadow]

BitCoin would essentially allow you to do the same thing without having to carry any actual currency on you because you would only have to get to an internet access location within each country and then would have access to unlimited BitCoin transactions.  This makes it a lot safer and could avoid strict currency import regulations that certain countries impose. 

That's an interesting selling point that I hadn't thought of before.

oh my, Cryptoman...

you've never tried to enter or return to the U.S. with $5,000.00 in cash?     heavens lad - you just haven't lived...

I highly recommed the body cavity search if you are into that kind of thing, but the cost of loosing all of your cash certainly makes a visit to an S&M brothel the greater value.

[humphrey]

YOUR MSG HERRE lol

Thanks for the reply. I sort of vanished for awhile. I wish id had stuck with the mining or at least bought some coins back when they was dirt cheap.

And my first bitcoins came from a coin seller and my own mining although it wasn't much.

[eMansipater]

You just made my day humphrey!  I was gone for a while, too, but people like you keep me coming back