Bitcoin Offering in Churches

[stompix]

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Anyway, there's something worth thinking about here.
We now have protocols that allow Bitcoin transfers with no transaction fees: Spark, Arkade, and Bark. As far as I can tell, Spark is the only one seeing any meaningful adoption. Arkade and Bark don't seem to have found much of a use case in practice.

First, I don't like your quote at all; you might want to redo that!

Second, because there is none!
It costs exactly 2 cents to send a simple tx right now if you have set up your wallet to recognize under 1 sat/vb fees.
It's even cheaper to use LN and not be tied to another layer.

Also, the whole thing about Spark is a bit idiotic, so fees are high you want to avoid fees to send Bitcoin, what do you need to do...oh, you need to send Bitcoins into a multisig address..paying the high fees;)

When someone is giving money away as a donation, it somehow feels wrong to charge a fee just to transfer it.

A transfer is a transfer!
Also, it's not the donation that gets taxed is the user that sends the donation.
Should I get free gas for the trip I've done to donate stuff to a shelter?

Anyhow!!!!
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At this point I'm actually disappointed seeing people questioning this story!

Are you all saying that a story written by AI from a newbie that makes no sense whatsoever....might be real because....

[perfect999]

Such concerns about the willingness of religionists to accept crypto assets can be easily explained since many perceive the decentralized nature of the technology as a tool used for making money laundering possible through the absence of control from the legal institutions. Blockchain accounting technology does not provide any opportunity to remain unnoticed, since each transaction gets registered in a decentralized manner and becomes accessible to anybody in the world. Houses of worship are usually trying to use the advantage of sending money across borders without having to pay extra expenses associated with shipping money from foreign countries wishing to make a contribution to help. Using crypto technology allows easy check of money balance transparency without having to use any bank intermediation services associated with high commission charges.

Decentralised nature surely attracts these worship centres because of the benefits you mentioned but yet at the end, they will have to rely on bank intermediation because they will have to convert these cryptos to make it of use. These centres can't spend cryptos directly because of the limited awareness so they will have to rely on banks for fiat conversions. In some cases, these instances attract more tax and attention from the authorities.

Not all, but there are or at least were a handful of these centres which were actually a front for money laundering. Even the cartel had a few of these centres under their pocket where they used to wash their dirty money.

[Marvelockg]

- The youth abroad actually prefer it. They send $10-$20 instantly, no Western Union $12 fee.

- The elders don't trust it. How will we count it on Sunday if it's in the phone?

This looks like a fabricated story for several reasons. Generally, modern churches that streams her service online makes provision for the different audience they have especially the ones that are not physically present to join in paying their offering but a typical aged woman will likely not know the options available for the online congregation.

If there are members of a church that are in places wheee making transfer through bitcoin. Is the cheapest means, then such can be adopted even though the charges involved will make the process a bit not worth it.

[internetional]

stompix, you do have to pay fees to move Bitcoin into an L2. But if I already hold my Bitcoin in Lightning, Arkade, Bark, and Spark, I'll prefer the last three for donations, and I won't have to pay any fees to move Bitcoin into them, since my Bitcoin is already there.

As for the free gas analogy - I understand your point, and I acknowledge that many people share your view. I was too categorical when I said that charging a fee was wrong. Some people see it as wrong, while others see nothing wrong with it. There's no reason to condemn those who charge fees.

So let me revise my position. Nobody is obligated to transport donations for free, but if there's a way to deliver a donation without transportation costs, I believe using that option is more in keeping with the spirit of giving. If someone wants to donate a certain amount to a church, it's perfectly reasonable to use a fee-free transfer method that allows the church to receive the full amount.

[Victorybit1]

This is first time that I hard of that chiurch accepts Bitcoin. It really surprised me, because I cant imagine a church acepting BTC in my country. Maybe the example that you presented will set up a trend and more churches will start accepting donations in BTC.

Also to answer your question if I would be a priest and if I received BTC donation I would just hold in on the wallet (as Iexpect for BTC price to rise), and sold it just if there is a big need for it.

I don't think this is real and if it is real let the op drop some fact on the storyline to make it authentic. I have meant a pastor that knows bitcoin very well and he has acquired some bitcoin before and he got it through trading, I meant him when he advertise some things to sell on social media and he only told me that he got bitcoin through trading. I have not heard of any church my country accept bitcoin as tithe or offering but pastors are into bitcoin investment and trading op can snap the so call QR code for evidence if really it is a true story.

I do feel there is a sense to his story, I don't know for smaller churches, but the church I attend, although they don't take tithing with Bitcoin but one thing I know about my church is that they have a financial department that not just store and record transactions, they are also involved in the investment market and the proceedings are used to grow local branches or for humanitarian services, so it's plausible that they can accept bitcoin overtime

[M47AK16]

May the Lord of Christians forgive me if this is a sin, the pastor is probably accepting Bitcoin because he understands that it can't be traceable by anyone, since it's church offering.

A pastor taking Bitcoin as offering is quite questionable, why would he even consider to do this aside from the fact that those money being paid are laundered or cannot be traced, don't let religion make you assume that the questions you ask about this are not valid or they are a sin, we are supposed to think logically when it comes to situations like this because it's actually not right.

There's definitely more going on here that a lot of people are yet to know about or perhaps he has his reasons for taking these funds in Bitcoin.

A lot of people will be blind-folded by faith. They will not even think about raising any such questions so this continues for quite sometime. If you start raising questions, the next thing you know is you are out of the church. Pastor has to be tech savvy in order to actually transact those bitcoins. Receiving is not the hard part, using or further parting is. These donations are never questioned so the money coming in can be from any part of the world. Not just the legit money is going to flow in.

I can only think of personal reasons for taking these funds in bitcoins. Maybe he might have heard from someone and wants to start exploring. Luckily the transactions are traceable so we can at least know where and how the funds are being used.

[Supreme Donvic]

This is first time that I hard of that chiurch accepts Bitcoin. It really surprised me, because I cant imagine a church acepting BTC in my country. Maybe the example that you presented will set up a trend and more churches will start accepting donations in BTC.

Also to answer your question if I would be a priest and if I received BTC donation I would just hold in on the wallet (as Iexpect for BTC price to rise), and sold it just if there is a big need for it.

I don't think this is real and if it is real let the op drop some fact on the storyline to make it authentic. I have meant a pastor that knows bitcoin very well and he has acquired some bitcoin before and he got it through trading, I meant him when he advertise some things to sell on social media and he only told me that he got bitcoin through trading. I have not heard of any church my country accept bitcoin as tithe or offering but pastors are into bitcoin investment and trading op can snap the so call QR code for evidence if really it is a true story.

I do feel there is a sense to his story, I don't know for smaller churches, but the church I attend, although they don't take tithing with Bitcoin but one thing I know about my church is that they have a financial department that not just store and record transactions, they are also involved in the investment market and the proceedings are used to grow local branches or for humanitarian services, so it's plausible that they can accept bitcoin overtime

I agree with you that churches can be involved in investment market because they will actually want to grow their income and whatever seems good to do in other to grow their income they will do it, if a church is involved in investment market then surely they will accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency.
The way some church is being structured these days it makes people to question if church is now a business or not, but as for me I believe they are just trying to make things easier for people.

[PVequalNRT]

Honestly, I don’t know if this is something churches should be celebrating. Sometimes I wonder whether we’re slowly turning places of worship into financial institutions. Offering, tithes, special seeds, building funds and now Bitcoin?

I don't think there is a problem with churches receiving donations in Bitcoin, after all Bitcoin is money and that's an adoption. There are people that have Bitcoin in their spending wallet, they don't have cash to give but will gladly, they have these feeling that when a person spend and receive Bitcoin for these kind of things, it makes them happy. However, the story and how its narrated looks like an event that never happen at all.

Technology may make giving easier but it doesn’t necessarily make the intention behind it better. My concern is that greed is gradually taking over the very institutions that should be teaching contentment, compassion and selflessness.
Before churches start adopting every new way of collecting money, perhaps they should ask themselves whether they’re becoming more focused on faith or fundraising.

Just my honest opinion.

Why do you say so? Churches is an organization like many others. If people are willing to donate money to them in Bitcoin, I don't see anything wrong with it l. There was a chruch that was attacked one time and many properties were destroyed, online people made donations to them through vaurous medium, I believe this kind of donations through Bitcoin is one good means.

[JoyceBTC]

I have never seen a church that uses bitcoin but if there is one, that is a good thing, although your story looks fabricated but if it’s also real, it a good thing churches are gradually adopting bitcoin and at the same time it creating more awareness for persons who don’t know about it.
Secondly, for the question you asked concerning if they should convert it to fiat or not, I think after every Sunday service it should be converted to fiat. Reason is because the church tithe is meant for the church welfare and anything that has to do with the church, so having the money in fiat will help them sort out anything they need, since most church has a lot of responsibility to sort out, it will prevent them from losing funds and that is if that fund will truly be used for church concerns.

[devouring-DARKNESS]

I don't think a church will be willing to leave that bitcoin there for a couple years, so the best move will be to convert it to their fiat and maybe use it for whatever church work/project it is to be used for because while churches do have savings I think their money moves out a lot to serve for other purposes including but not limited to charity, a volatile asset is not ideal to keep such money.

If someone sent $100 worth but it's value dropped to $85 then no one is responsible for that lose, I don't even think churches keep records of the exact amount of offering a particular individual gives, a total of everything that was given, yes, but not what each individual gave.

[Miles2006]

Honestly, this is the first time hearing about bitcoin in such manner, I am not surprised because of how bitcoin popularity has gotten.
Bitcoin is highly volatile, just wondering if bitcoin should be implemented in this aspect also will this do any good to the church in terms of bitcoin price fluctuation? The example set concerning $100 and then the  money drops down to $85, is really a serious issue. I believe the church, treasurer precisely knows how bitcoin work so firstly a good record can go a long way, though if the church decides to convert it’s left for them, this news is really an improvement showing how majority of people hold bitcoin.

[Davidvictorson]

- Should the church convert instantly to fiat or keep it as church treasury? Our pastor asked me this and I didn't have a good answer.

What do you think?

hmmm... this story is quite plausible
But assuming it happened then I would say it wasn't well thought out by the church.
At this time any amount of bitcoin that is small will not be of any profit to whomever the recipient of it is.
You should discourage your pastor from having that option for the church.