Bitcoin Offering in Churches

[jahead]

Haha, the starting post is total BS and people are actually falling for it!  Just take a look at the latest posts from this brand-new account, they are all AI-generated, just like this one.... The structure, the formatting, the sentence structures, everything and it is almost identical everywhere. Either people just want to reply to post something, or some users here have zero sense for AI and can not tell AI apart from reality at all.  Guys, I am honestly starting to lose hope for the future of society... ... ... ...

[Rruchi man]

@OP, we can tell it is a cooked up story, but for discussion sake,

- The treasurer now has to learn what a confirmation is.

Maybe the Church will need to have a younger person with a better understanding to work with the treasurer as an assistant or partner.

- 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?

Depends on the church approach; if the church is interested in having an investment, having bitcoin can be a good choice, but if the church is okay with having the money readily available for use for church expenses, there is no need keeping it as bitcoin so it is not affected by market fluctuations.

[Stalker22]

Most religious houses own their own form of cryptocurrency and would prefer that instead of Bitcoin.

?? 
Could you explain this in a bit more detail?  Like... where are you actually seeing this?  Are you referring to a specific religious group or an actual crypto project you came across?  Because tbvh this sounds completely made up.

I'm shocked as well, this is the first time I’m hearing that many religious houses have their own cryptos, and they prefer it over bitcoin. As religious as my country is, I haven’t heard or seen one religious house that own a crypto of their own. It has not been reported by news outlets, I haven’t come across it on the internet either. This is the first time, I’m hearing it. I’m equally interested to know more from @Alphakilo experience. More details information would be appreciated, because I’m seriously wondering who will reject bitcoin in place of a coin that haven’t been heard of by billions of people.

Obviously, that was pure bullshit.  I doubt he will come back here and explain his statement.

[Majestic-milf]

 Okay lets participate in your fantasies. It will be cool to accept offerings in Bitcoin but I'd rather stick to either cash or transfers. 

[m2017]

My Church Started Accepting Bitcoin Offering

In that case, could bitcoin be considered the very same cryptocurrency (the original one) that was officially blessed by the church?

3 Old Women Asked Me What a Wallet Is

For such people, it is easier to donate in the form of conventional money.

Something interesting happened last month. My local church added a Bitcoin QR code next to the offering basket.

Why did servants of God hesitate for so long regarding bitcoin, and why has only now taken notice of this asset? God could have spotted the potential of bitcoin sooner, couldn't He?

Pastor said Some of our youth abroad want to give, but bank charges are high.

What will the opponents of bitcoin, who believe that active is used solely for criminal purposes, have to say about this?

First Sunday it was $0
Second Sunday Someone sent $5 worth
Third Sunday An old mama came to me after service, My son in Canada said he sent offering through that picture. Did God receive it?

We laughed,

It seems to me that bitcoin should now be "cleansed" of all its sinful past uses by criminals and the like.

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

Have you finally seen the advantages of cryptocurrencies?

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

Why force elderly parishioners to switch to a new payment method? Two alternative systems could coexist: cash for the older generation, and a bitcoin for the younger one.

- The treasurer now has to learn what a confirmation is.

But why? He doesn’t manually check every confirmation after each donation, does he?

It's been 1 month, total ∼$68 in BTC. Not much, but more than we expected.

Moreover, as it turns out, these bitcoins were left untouched throughout this one-month period.

- Has anyone seen a church,mosque,temple accepting Bitcoin as offering or tithe regularly?

This is the first I’ve heard of it, but why not?

Does it work long term?

Let the pastor of your church continue the experiment, and you’ll find out.

- How would you handle volatility?

Simply wait until the wallet balance becomes positive (relative to the initial contributions) before making use of the funds. However, I would recommend treating these donations as a long-term savings fund (to be built up over several years).

Look, for instance: you’ve accumulated $68 in a month. Over the course of a year, that comes to just $816. That’s really not much at all, considering the needs of an organization like this. I don’t think such a modest sum (by church standards) will significantly improve the financial situation.

If someone gives $100 in BTC on Sunday and it's $85 on Monday,
who takes the loss?

God.

Why ask such questions? You don’t cash out every couple of dollars you receive in donations the moment they arrive, do you? And even if you did, why this greed over "lost" potential gains? Is that what your teachings preach? Be content with what you’ve received, after all, it’s a donation, which, for that matter, might not have been given at all. Accept the volatility with humility; such is the nature of the app.

Alternatively, just start accepting donations in USDT (or another coin).

- 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.

In the long run, it is, of course, more profitable to hold onto them and wait for the price of bitcoin to go up.

[YellowSwap]

My Church Started Accepting Bitcoin Offering
3 Old Women Asked Me What a Wallet Is

Something interesting happened last month. My local church added a Bitcoin QR code next to the offering basket.

Pastor said Some of our youth abroad want to give, but bank charges are high.

First Sunday it was $0
Second Sunday Someone sent $5 worth
Third Sunday An old mama came to me after service, My son in Canada said he sent offering through that picture. Did God receive it?

We laughed, but it got me thinking

- 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?

- The treasurer now has to learn what a confirmation is.

It's been 1 month, total ∼$68 in BTC. Not much, but more than we expected.

- Has anyone seen a church,mosque,temple accepting Bitcoin as offering or tithe regularly?

 Does it work long term?
- How would you handle volatility?
If someone gives $100 in BTC on Sunday and it's $85 on Monday,
who takes the loss?

- 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?

Don't take it to heart as I just want to say this, it would have been better if you drop a picture of that Bitcoin QR code in the church on this forum, this will make your story or writeup looks way more genuine.

It's funny how the old woman asked if God received the money from his son who is living in Canada, this is none of God's business because God doesn't spend money, He doesn't care about it, money is only useful for humans.

By the way, only the pastor seem to know what Bitcoin wallet looks like, I think he is going to take over this money one day, since he is the only one with that Bitcoin wallet recovery seed, normally if it's genuine they should use Multisig and split the seed phrase.

[Obari]

 Does it work long term?
- How would you handle volatility?
If someone gives $100 in BTC on Sunday and it's $85 on Monday,
who takes the loss?

- 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?

Things like this makes me feel like the church is truly a business and not an actual place of worship because I have heard cases of church members who sent money more than expected, and later went for refund from the church but the pastor refused returning the over balance to the sender with calls that God has accepted the money which I find very funny.
Receiving bitcoin as an offering isn't a bad idea since bitcoin is a form of money and there are people that spend typically bitcoin, so listing a wallet address or a QR code wouldn't still a bad idea but my issue with them is that, these offerings should be used for the right course and not self enrichment.

[Darker45]

I won't be surprised if this story turned out to be true. It's not impossible for a church to improve their ways in collecting offerings, donations, or tithes.

Here in my country, some masses and religious services are broadcast live or recorded and posted online. QR codes, bank accounts, mobile banking app accounts, and the like are also flashed on the screen for donations and offerings.

If sidewalk vendors, ambulant vendors, and even beggars are already accepting online transfers for payments and alms, why can't churches do the same right?

But I have yet to see QR codes for Bitcoin or crypto donation or offering. It would be interesting if OP could share some pics.

[internetional]

post nonsense

...

Last week I had to pay 42 sat/vB - about $24 to consolidate some small UTXOs. I was angry.Then I thought about it differently.
So my question is If we want Bitcoin to be above what it is currently, and used by a billion people, shouldn't we STOP complaining about $5 fees and start admitting high fees are a sign of success?

We have like few members in Canada,US,UK. They left in 2022-2023. Every time they want to pay tithe or offering from abroad, they complain Western Union fee is $12-$15 for $20 offering.

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.

And yet these protocols are perfect for situations like this. When someone is giving money away as a donation, it somehow feels wrong to charge a fee just to transfer it.

I don't know whether briggswillis4real's story is true, but if it is, I'd suggest putting an address from one of these protocols on the QR code instead of an on-chain Bitcoin address. That might also be a good way to get church members interested in what's new with Bitcoin.

[Tungbulu]

First of all, this is literally the first time I’m hearing this, but I think I really like the sound of that. I don’t know why I just really get excited over every form of usage of Bitcoin, especially in the most unexpected ways lol. Accepting Bitcoin in a church just shows that Bitcoin is actually serving its purpose, I mean it’s doing what it knows how to do best, that’s being a seamless form of payment, especially across borders.
Yeah, they would’ve probably been charged a high fee if they used other alternatives to send their offerings, especially when the amounts are small; but thank God for Bitcoin right??

[Youngrebel]

- Has anyone seen a church,mosque,temple accepting Bitcoin as offering or tithe regularly?

Have been a chorister for years now, going for ministration from one church to the other and I haven’t come across any church that accept bitcoin as any means of payment or transaction in church, maybe it might be going on or maybe not but I have come across any one so far.

- 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.

I think they should convert instantly after service if the current market price is good and if it’s not they can wait for a while and monitor the market.

[Lucano]

No one will bear any profits or losses because it's a donation. Bitcoin's value shouldn't be pegged to dollars, but rather to the number of bitcoins. If exchanged directly, transaction fees will depreciate the value. Converting at least once a month is much simpler, as long as the value of Bitcoin isn't affected.

[uneng]

I think it's better to exchange the donation from BTC into fiat currency as soon as the church receives it. This way, you maintain the original donation price the closest as possible to the final price to be cashed out.

If the church waits too long to exchange the money, it may give room to speculation regards honesty and transparency among the local followers. Remember the main goal here isn't to adopt BTC as a mean of investment, but as mean to avoid abusive taxes imposed by traditional banking system when dealing with international transactions.

[Doan9269]

Okay lets participate in your fantasies. It will be cool to accept offerings in Bitcoin but I'd rather stick to either cash or transfers. 

It can be made an optional decision to give an offering in Bitcoin or not, since they still permit for the acceptance of cash for offerings, things have advanced to the extent that we need to stop limiting ourselves to what we can do or the others implementing, it is not even bad if the church treasury is trying to hold their assets in Bitcoin as well, all that is needed is true accountability, any bitcoiner who is a church member and willing to give his offering can as well pay in Bitcoin as he may wishes to give.

[danadc]

What I think is that religions have no limits. The fact that I don't tithe doesn't mean I'm a bad follower. Churches of any religion but I'm referring specifically to Catholicism, which is what I am ask for tithes. That has nothing to do with God; it's just feeding the Vatican, lol.

Now the Church can give them in BTC because the audacity is unmatched. I respect everyone, but things are getting out of control. I think there's no longer that desire to learn the dogma, but rather an interest in what others can contribute.

Even if they promote the adoption of Bitcoin, I don't think they should mix it with things related to God.

[Die_empty]

What do you think?

I have attended several religious gatherings, and none of them have asked for offerings in any cryptocurrency.

A youthful church or mosque might sustain this innovation since more of them are exposed to cryptocurrencies. A church whose main population is elderly people might not continue with the donation in Bitcoin since many of them might not be interested.

The church would have to decide how they want to use the Bitcoin. They might decide to hold it for a long time as an asset. If the offering would be used within a short period, it would be ideal to convert it to fiat immediately to avoid the effect of inflation.

[Sammye3]

There are churches in my country that accept bitcoin, in their opinion it is convenient and fast for mostly people living internationally just like you mentioned, but it is best preferred that USDT be used to escape the volatility of bitcoin. Both USDT and bitcoin have the same transfer process so the chuch could decide which one is convenient for use.

It is relatable that the oldies would have little or no idea about cryptocurrencies, but that would not be same with the youths who are involved in mostly trading and other bitcoin related activities. It would really help with bitcoin's adoption and decentralization.

[Franklyn-wood]

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.

Sincerely this is my first time hear that a pastor accept Bitcoin as tithe and offering, well the members might be Bitcoin owners that trade Bitcoin.This will make it become a Bitcoin community and it can be dangerous to the holder, because it may attract scammer and thieves that can trail those whom they suspect are paying tithe and offering with Bitcoin.
Nothing bad for a pastor to trade Bitcoin, it will even leverage him more than others that deals with fiat alone and also an opportunity to teach his members about Bitcoin.

[Mpamaegbu]

What do you think?

I believe that church stuff ought not to be affected by modernity. It should remain the way it was as of old. Like they say, perhaps religious people easily forget that when they quote Hebrews 13:8 – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. If He remained that way, why are people trying to change His easy nature?

Church people will often find every avenue to make sure members are cornered with tithes and offerings while they neglect the weighter matters of the Christian faith that should embrace salvation and holiness.

[Crypto_Timothy]

What do you think?

There was this church that i can remember them campaigning against buying of Tvs and Phones especially for children and youth adults becuase it was the devil's access and channel only for the Covid period to hit and everyone single church i knew went online with streaming and service worshipping online so now seeing churches accept Bitcoin is just funny to me though i commend it because adoption must start from somewhere.

And ye, the treasuer now has to learn confirmation, funny as that may have sounded and also i think it would be wise to convert as it drops to USD becuase the church is a body that makes use of money regulary, you cannot except the church to keep Bitcoing while maybe church members are hungry or they need to buld one or two structures, so becuase of that i would say just convert, to avoid by monday you are reading minus and that money is needed by wednesday for a project or so.