Quote from: bybitcoin on July 28, 2013, 06:10:18 AM

Quote from: Luckybit on July 28, 2013, 05:41:19 AM

Quote from: bybitcoin on July 28, 2013, 05:26:27 AM

Quote from: Luckybit on July 28, 2013, 04:55:04 AM

Quote from: bybitcoin on July 28, 2013, 01:12:37 AM

Quote from: _ingsoc on July 26, 2013, 02:02:21 PM

Quote from: Robre on July 26, 2013, 01:31:50 PM

With the Kickstarter project, will we require USD or can we do LTC?

Most crowdfunding platforms allow whatever fiat currency you use to convert to USD. The reasoning for why we need to do this at present is outlined in post #902. I do foresee that this will change one day, but right now we don't have cryptocurrency platforms to do so, as we need to bridge the space between funding to development. It may be an extra step for a few people, which sucks, but in the bigger picture it's no big deal.

Actually treating and following this subject in the btc community forum and keeping people attended and informed about this new cryptocurrency that is coming to change their experience of using previous ones, but then limiting the already established fan club by a fiat payment only, not only sucks but hurts and disappoints as well Sad

That is true, things are not ideal, but I think creating a btc exchange account (in Bitstamp, MtGox..) and letting the btc users to pay and buy limited number of tickets through it, based on the current exchange rate of usd/btc at the moment of payment, wouldn't hurt anybody. This can at least be done for small investment/purchase of the tickets (<1 btc~=$100 for example).
The final amount received in that account (after reaching a cap perhaps), which will be in $, can be easily transferred by the use of wire system to any bank in US and Europe in not more than a week (you can include and charge the transfer and other fees this method may cause, to the investor's payment bill)
It will be wise to let 30% or even a bit more share of tickets to be sold this way (and you may put a limit for each purchase, by using btctalk id, to avoid rush or unfair distribution). Your currency will certainly have a brighter future if you let more people in to have a piece of the pie (even a very small one).

It's bad enough that those paying will have to provide identifiable information, but it's even worse if they have to connect it to their Bitcointalk ID too. That reduces security for the participants in exchange for decentralization of power. I think in this case security is more important than decentralization of power because power can be decentralized in other ways and at later times. Honestly, the people who buy in early aren't really guaranteed a larger piece of the pie than people who buy in late, they aren't necessarily going to have more coins, it just means they believed in the project from the start and were the first to become stakeholders and take the plunge.

That you take only the part of my post which mentioned btctalk id (just proposed it for limiting the purchase per each buyer, but that can be ignored easily) and not the proposed way of buying in with btc, is interesting and really btctalk typical Wink

One may desire to buy-in early not only to have a part of potential profit but also to support its favorite project. And after all, don't you think paying directly in fiat will more disturb the privacy and provide identity disclosure than paying by btctalk id and a btc wallet?! Huh

I'm not too happy about the USD payment requirement. I understand why it would exist (for accounting and because it minimizes risk on the developers), but I also understand it merely shifts some risks from the developers onto the investors. Developers must have identities in order to get paid and to make the process transparent (for defense against scams, fraud, theft). Pseudo-anonymous development would be fine if you do it for free but when money is involved then there is currently no effective infrastructure in place to allow independent contractors to get paid in Bitcoin (developers in this context would be considered independent contractors).

When we make payment to kickstarter we are not going to be anonymous and that means somewhere a paper trail will exist on all who supported Netcoin development. That introduces a privacy risk to all who pay in USD, but if you do believe Netcoin is a good idea and you do support the idea then in my opinion you should pay. If you want some privacy you can pay in a friends name. The other problem is what you mentioned in that it would mostly be Americans who have USD so the early distribution might not be as good as it could be with Bitcoin.

I hope there is a way to let people pay with Bitcoin, have it exchanged into USD and then pay the developers. I think that would be the ideal way but I do understand it would be difficult.

I think my proposal works efficiently: just receive the payments through an exchange (like merchant payment model in mtgox). People will pay in btc based on the current btc/usd rate. Received btc will be converted instantly to usd in that exchange account and when the cap is reached, it can be easily sent to any bank account or distributed among the developers. That account will have a transaction history which can be used to check honesty. (and if there are any extra conversion to usd and then wire transfer to bank expenses, it can be calculated and be paid by the buyers proportionally)
Paying directly in USD would only mean limited, sophisticated and full of hassles..

It's my belief that I think centralizing of the funding platform is best. I've had several projects funded and it went smoothly without any hassle at all. With Kickstarter, you have the option to close the campaign the moment that it funds. This will preserve the amount of set awards that we have.

It's hard to predict how much of the population will have Bitcoin and they may have other cryptocurrencies as well. (what's the demand like...etc) It may sound easy on paper to coordinate these two different payment methods, but I suspect it may be a tad more difficult than it appears and would require some work, that will be taken away from developing Netcoin. One issue would be the timing of the payments and you could have to cross verify the first $50k...etc and you may have to refund payments through the exchange (not sure if conversion rates would be charged for this) I don't think you can limit the amount of payments with the exchange account (if this exceeds the 30% you proposed) and if the funding happens quite quickly, then the administrator would have to verify the transactions, see who paid what and then send the payments back accordingly (there can be lots of room for error, furthermore there may be additional fees for reversal of payment, no refunds for Bitcoin...) Sounds like a mess waiting to happen

But honestly though, Kickstarter isn't broke and it's very optimized. Over $500 million projects have been already funded...and they process the payments through Amazon Payments, which allows you to fund in a variety of ways. Just stick with what they proposed and lets get this project finally started. It's really no big deal.

However, the main reason why I think it has to be done in traditional systems is that the work is being delegated to developers or teams of developers and currently these agreements are best enforceable with traditional systems. We need the transparency, paperwork and invoices, so that there is accountability.

Kickstarter also provides us with that additional legal obligation.