Topic: EFF donations and the Bitcoin Faucet - page 3. (Read 16323 times)

I'd just lost all my respect for EFF.

But hardly actually does anything constructive, like build the economy, or encourage people to use bitcoins. I think I much prefer the idea of just giving them to Gavin and the other developers to do with as they please, rather than that.

They should just shred the wallet file. That would be equivalent to giving a little donation to every other bitcoin user in proportion to how many bitcoins they have.

In the future it is likely there will be significant legal contention concerning Bitcoin.  At this point the EFF is one of the first organisations which comes to mind which might choose to defend Bitcoin.  Their position would be weakened if they held a large sum of Bitcoins themselves.


Yes, how odd.  I didn't like the trolls but now that they're absent I find myself missing them.

I think a lot of people who donated to a non-profit will object to the difference with what Bruce is doing. Holding on to the coins until the EFF comes off the fence would be best I think.

Very high level of signal to noise ratio in this thread, lots of thoughtful posts, how refreshing

I think it would be better if the funds in question could be given to one or more developers to do the following:

1. Make better client software, ie. secure it better with default encryption.

There are probably other things as well, we could need a distributed exchenge. Do not know how that should be done, but there are many things these money could be used for.

No need for corporations; Bitcoin doesn't have to work like that.

Make a "trust fund" account on ClearCoin, with some trustees.  That trust will be held for (officially) "the good of the community"; but unofficially "for the day when EFF accepts Bitcoins".

I understand why the EFF don't want them now.  They're going to be the place we go to when the shit hits the fan.  When the government come for you, the EFF will be the ones who turn up to save you.  They can see that's what's going to happen, and so are making sure they don't have a vested interest in seeing Bitcoins declared legal.

However, that doesn't stop the community from saying: "fine, we'll keep them".  Just as there would be nothing stopping each of the original donors from keeping all returned coins to one side for exactly the same purpose.

Sorry, I started composing my post shortly after you posted.  I didn't know FSF accepted Bitcoin, thanks for this.

Yes, along with the best pro-Bitcoin suggestions I think these possibilities should be mentioned.  I'm hopeful that the EFF will find a good balance if they are given enough options.

I see where you're coming from and I'm aware that the EFF contacted Gavin, not the other way around.  I'm guessing that by declaring that they will not be converting the funds to cash that they are also opposed to having a third party convert the funds to cash and then donate the cash to them (legal mess).

What I'm not clear on is wether the EFF aim to support Bitcoin directly or simply seek advice from Gavin.  If the former is the case I have no problem, the EFF have received funds and now they want to put them to use supporting a new cryptographic currency - fair play.  In the latter case it would be good to see some non-Bitcoin suggestions too.  For example, the EFF could donate the total to torservers.net (they seem to be more closely associated with torservers than with bitcoin so they may feel more comfortable with this).

Electronic what foundation?

There is a way to do a refund.  It's a bit manual, but:

- Each person desiring a refund sends an email to the EFF with a tiny, random, specific amount specified (e.g. .00176132), along with an address to use for the refund.
- The person then sends this amount to the donation address.  
- Block explorer can find the specific donation, and show the full amount sent from the donator to the EFF.
- Refund is made.

*Disclaimer: Based on my somewhat limited understanding*

It's a shame, though I certainly understand the reasons behind their actions. (Basically, they aren't sure of the legal implications, and don't want to be a test case, and they also don't want to be seen as endorsing bitcoins.)

However, I would rather see most of the coins go to another organisation, such as the FSF or Freenet. I donated (either 10 or 15 bitcoin, back when they weren't worth as much) specifically to help fight for Internet freedom. While I like the idea of some of they money going to the Faucet, I don't see the need for all of it going there. After all, the Faucet can run off a trickle.

Hopefully they think about their decision a bit more before they go through with it.

Gavin was contacted by the EFF, not the other way around (see OP).
Gavin asked this forum for ideas on what he should do (he didn't say he was going to do them, he's taking a temperature)
The EFF was clear that they will NOT be converting the funds to cash, and that they see no way to return the funds legitimately, hence they reached out to Gavin to ask for ideas of what to do with them.

Based on all of the above, it would seem that they should do:
a)  Donate them to the developers to assist with costs on improving the client, protocol, and security issues (if any) around Bitcoin.
b)  Donate them to the "Community" via the Faucet.
c)  Fund pro-Bitcoin projects, in Bitcoins.  These could be bounties for bugs, funds for new projects, attorney fees (paid in BTC), etc.

We're just providing ideas, ultimately it's Gavin who will make suggestions back to the EFF.

Also, wouldn't it provide much more impact for the Bitcoin community if the EFF did C above?  Showing that this currency can get real-world issues solved and people will do real work for them.  I would think that just having the EFF convert them to cash and then spend the cash would be kind of a failure on the part of the community.  That means Bitcoins are just a commodity, not a currency, to be speculated with. 

Use them directly, buy things with them, pay for labor with them, but definitely don't just hold them.

Personally I'm a fan of the faucet.  I got my first 5 BTC there.  I've since donated 10 BTC back and am impressed with how it's come along.  However we're talking about the bitcoins which people have donated to the EFF, not to the faucet (or even to the success of Bitcoin).  Diverting the funds to a pro-bitcoin project on the whim of a few forum posts is irresponsible.

If the EFF specifically want to support Bitcoin and specifically by funding the faucet then fine, they may spend their coins as they see fit, but I think they could have put those funds to far better use.  As I said before, fiat donors of the EFF would probably be upset to see the EFF simply funnel all their funds into the faucet.  If my donations will be treated with more respect if I donate in fiat then I will avoid using Bitcoin for donations from here on.

I don't know how effective the faucet is now due to abuse, but personally it was my very first bitcoin transaction that I received. It clearly demonstrated how Bitcoin worked for me real time and help me take a step closer to using Bitcoin personally. I say Faucet would be one cause that we can all agree on as a community which is to promote for the success of Bitcoin.

Sounds reasonable, though IMHO the EFF have proven unworthy of these donations by their cowardly behavior.

I have been thinking. Why would they do this? All this "we didn't mean to endorse ..." BS ... it really reverses their earlier behavior where they DID ENDORSE bitcoin.

I guess they just have some bigger donors who prefer to donate in dollars and have a vested interest in bitcoin not succeeding. Really, one "liberal-minded" bank/business might be enough to put pressure on them. For all the good that the EFF has done (I used to be a big fan), maybe they have just become too big, too successful, too American, too intertwined with the establishment? What a shame.

If the EFF cannot use my donation in the form of BTC then I would either want my donation returned to me (if possible) or converted to fiat and donated back to the EFF.

I'm not keen on the money going into the faucet.  This is not much better than my donating fiat to the EFF only to have them convert it all to BTC and donate it to the faucet.

I see that torservers.net still has a bitcoin donation address although they have close contact with the EFF.  Is it likely that they too will have to give up accepting BTC donations?

Now that's a nice question...

I also want to add that the amount of Bitcoins one can get via the faucet is of zero use at all.

You cannot even buy a single share at GLBSE in any of the listed companies/investments there, you cannot buy anything useful and you cannot "experiment" with the money either, because of transfer fees. You anyways need more BTC and to accomplish this, you need to mine or buy some or sell something. The amount you would get with this is far higher than the money from the faucet, so all you can "learn" there is how it looks getting a transaction.

All it does is giving people an incentive to game the system to gain some more relevant amount of BTC out of it as the current amount is useless and a more useful amount won't last long.

It's like someone sending out a single penny in an obscure currency - as long as you don't have already more of these, all you can really do is store it (and be even a little pissed, that you have money lying around that is of no use - I would be!) and then, after some time when you forgot about it, throw it away.

Sorry, but this is not what people intended in my opinion when donating to the EFF.


I would like to see the following changes:
1 single Satoshi coming out of the faucet. This still lets people see how to receive a donation/transaction but will last MUCH longer if someone donates a few Bitcent to the faucet.
To make these transactions free, talk to pool operators if they would include them and use some of the EFF money as bounty for someone developing a good and safe transaction inclusion program (to let pool operators decide which transactions to include and which not, based on certain criteria). This is needed much more than having a few people creating hundreds of Google accounts to gain a few Dollars...

The rest of the money can then stay in the faucet, that would (even with severe hacking) most likely never again run dry.
As far as I understand it, it was anyways not meant to give out meaningful amounts of money (to be able to buy ANYTHING) - so it shouldn't matter if you hand out Satoshis or Millicents.

Satoshis might even stand out more and be a kind of a "reminder" of the faucet, since they are seperated from the rest of the coins, if you trade via a few zeroes.

Why not give them to Bruce Wagner's "bitcoin firehydrant"? At least we'd get a nice publicity event that might be pro bitcoin for a change when a million people queue up for free bitcoins in NYC. Though, come to think of it, it might be better to stage this in Kolkatta/India.