[X] My Assistant

Does anyone know what the donation exchange rate is based on? I'm currently seeing $330 per bitcoin for donating. However, the Mt. Gox weighted average is at $420 per bitcoin.

It's based on MtGox average rate at the time you donate.

Some sites do have their own CC processors. I don't know how they did that, but at least, I don't see any third party payment processors.

Probably thinking about companies like CCBill. Difference is that such services are NOT designed to support donations. All such services are subscription oriented - trial (usually 3 days)/1m/3m/6m/1y.

Guessing that Tenboro rubbing his hands right now for pay-2-play HV. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

For those who don't know Bitcoin is going CRAZY right now. Government basically said today "we will do our best to help Bitcoin grow in a mature way".

Might be time for another donation soon. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Wish you could donate more casually. ._. Bitcoins make my head swivel.

Wish you could donate more casually. ._. Bitcoins make my head swivel.

You can thank the idiots who can't follow simple instructions that got all of Tenboro's accounts banned on the 'easier' payment method sites.

Though donating via bitcoin for me was pretty straightforward and relatively simple; I had a gold star within 2 days, even though I knew nothing about bitcoins prior to using them to donate here. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

The donation procedure is pretty straightforward, it's the initial acquisition of BitCoins that can be a bit of a pain, depending on location.

How is the BTC amount on the payment page calculated? Does it still use the MtGox weighted average and add 10% to the final donation amount? The payment page always wants more than I think it should.

For example, if I want to donate $400 USD (i.e., $440 including the added 10%) with the weighted average at around $1149 I'd expect to have to pay about 0.38 BTC, but on the payment page it wants north of 0.46 BTC.

How is the BTC amount on the payment page calculated? Does it still use the MtGox weighted average and add 10% to the final donation amount? The payment page always wants more than I think it should.

For example, if I want to donate $400 USD (i.e., $440 including the added 10%) with the weighted average at around $1149 I'd expect to have to pay about 0.38 BTC, but on the payment page it wants north of 0.46 BTC.

I was in a similar situation, I had to PM Tenbo for wallet cause I didn't have enough. And next week, it turned out I paid 10% more than necessary due to the rising value of BTC. These cases are unavoidable considering we're dealing with investment good that can fluctuate heavily.

How is the BTC amount on the payment page calculated? Does it still use the MtGox weighted average and add 10% to the final donation amount? The payment page always wants more than I think it should.

For example, if I want to donate $400 USD (i.e., $440 including the added 10%) with the weighted average at around $1149 I'd expect to have to pay about 0.38 BTC, but on the payment page it wants north of 0.46 BTC.

When you donate (using the donation page, not wallet transfer), there is a slight fee (which is a % of what you are donating) to transfer the bitcoin, so you might need a bit more. The amount of the donation is the current price of the bitcoin at that time.

This post has been edited by Sky Arc: Nov 29 2013, 07:49

When you donate (using the donation page, not wallet transfer), there is a slight fee (which is a % of what you are donating) to transfer the bitcoin, so you might need a bit more. The amount of the donation is the current price of the bitcoin at that time.

I see; so that's a separate fee from the typical 0.0005 BTC (or whatever it is) transaction fee? In that case I'll just request a wallet address from Tenboro and do it that way.

0.0005 BTC

That's the "recommended" fee by the bitcoin network. You can create a transaction without a transaction fee when doing wallet to wallet transfer, but then your transaction takes ages (possibly a couple of days) to complete. This is because transactions that pay a fee to the network get priority, that's the reason for the existence of this fee.

Is it better to use mtgox or a direct donation if I am getting the bitcoin from a different website (ie. transaction fees and such). Also how would I get to see how many bitcoin I need to get a certain value (as I am buying in a different currency from usd)?

MtGox makes it near impossible to donate if you're in the US. You'd have to jump through a crap-ton of hoops, wait on several steps, not to mention lose money to transaction fees along the way. My advice? Coinbase. They have become rather reputable, and, although slow, offer very low fees. Do wallet-to-wallet with Tenboro on those. The only catch (of course) is bank account linkage. If you're fine with that, then you're set.
Also, the time it takes for a BTC purchase to clear with Coinbase is about a week, so yeah...slow, as I said, but the fees are small compared to anywhere else.
As for your whole conversion question, Coinbase (and other sites I'd imagine) have fields where you can type in your amount in either currency (BTC or USD). Just type in the amount you want to donate (+5 dollars, just to be safe) and submit. It'll take a week, and then maybe a half to a week more for the wallet-to-wallet to transfer to Tenboro, PM him and wait for him to credit the donation (he's a busy guy, so this may also take a while, but it will get done). If you do use Coinbase (I would...they're in the US and...well, everything else I said about them...) make sure you PM Tenboro beforehand to get an address for donating to. And don't bother with Bitcoin-Qt. If you want to run it just in case, that's fine, but don't use it as a middle-man for donations...you're just losing money. Donate directly from Coinbase. Less steps=less fees.

This post has been edited by xboxboy939495: Dec 8 2013, 19:10

Bitcoins are on sale guys.

Bitcoins are on sale guys.

What do you mean? and Woa, BT coins through the roof. They were $90 last time I donated lol, volatility is crazy too, people must be mass speculating.

What do you mean? and Woa, BT coins through the roof. They were $90 last time I donated lol, volatility is crazy too, people must be mass speculating.

I suppose he means price drop from $1000 to $700.

Some of the spike from the media-fueled hype seems to be gone due to the China thing. Which really only means it's back to mid-November levels.

Still not as bad as the $30 to $2 drop, nor the $260 to $80 drop.

BTC is less of an investment and more of a lottery. Unless you have money to burn, just use it as a medium of exchange and everything will be fine.

Are the donations cumulative? I mean, if I test things out by donating $20 for the Bronze Star, can I later donate $30 and not the full $50 for the Silver Star, and then $50 more for the Gold Star? Or do I have to "waste" the prior donation if I donate again?

"Wasting" $20 like that is not huge, and it would go to you people which is nice, but I would of course prefer to test this Bitcoin stuff etc. cheaply first and then get further donation levels that much cheaper if I can... Didn't notice any conclusive information about this anywhere (maybe it is explained somewhere).

EDIT: Oh, never mind... I just found a sentence in the Wiki that said "yes" my question conclusively, when I clicked another member's award icon just now... Hehe. I kind of was 90% sure it was like that already.

This post has been edited by Murussu: Dec 7 2013, 14:36

BTC is less of an investment and more of a lottery. Unless you have money to burn, just use it as a medium of exchange and everything will be fine.

This, a million times this.

This post has been edited by Handsome Phil: Dec 7 2013, 22:45

Ten, that $30 down to $2 drop (it went to just over $0 at one point) when MtGox's servicer got hacked was a killer. I had mined about 55 coins back then. The first five vanished with my original wallet when I had to reformat my computer due to driver corruption while tinkering with overclocking my 5970 / 5870 combo.

Every time I tried to buy 58xx cards in bulk that summer something went horribly wrong, so after the drop I permanently stopped mining, sold my video cards for a profit, and bought a used GTX580. When BTC recovered to $30 I sold my stock of 50 coins. Seeing it spike to $1,200 I felt a little sellers remorse... but hey it could have always crashed back to zero again.

Trying to acquire two coins this past June (then about $100 each) was a major pain. The actual donation process was fine and I included a time date log of my MtGox transaction because of how much the price was fluctuating at the time.