Topic: Mozilla says they'll accept Bitcoin & crypto donations - page 2. (Read 708 times)

I tried to generate a BitPay invoice while following the checkout process on ledger for what would have been a ~$150 invoice for something that would be shipped to me, and I was asked to login to my BitPay account (or alternatively sign up for a BitPay account). I was however able to generate a ~$10 invoice for a Private Internet Access subscription via BitPay without being asked to login to my BitPay account.

I would conclude that the ability to pay via BitPay without creating a BitPay account, depends, at least in part on the transaction amount. I would expect the threshold will differ depending on various factors, such as the type of merchant the product is being purchased from, and if the transaction is being sent to a charity (eg, if it is a donation). They likely also at least try to track if someone is trying to evade threshold restrictions by repeatedly creating invoices for under the threshold amount.

So a further look on Reddit leads me to believe that BitPay have different rules for donations or for purchases. There are users who, like you, are able to generate Mozilla donation addresses without KYC, while other users are still being met with demands for KYC to order a $10 pizza. It doesn't seem to be geographical, either.

It also seems that the whole backtracking thing has simply been to placate these Twitter trolls and their faux outrage, and they are continuing to actually accept bitcoin.

Google's ever increasing domination of the Internet should be a concern for everyone.

 Besides the negative impact of Dogecoin to there crypto adaption. Mozilla is not much popular nowadays since Google dominate already the browser industry. And also they already stopped accepting cryptocurrency on there foundation after a lots of bashed they received on there tweets.

It appears their "climate commitments" is a way to bribe left-wing interest groups enough so they are not attacked by left-wing radicals.

Mozilla has ~1000 employees, which appears to be remote (even before covid), so I really cannot imagine they ever had any meaningful carbon footprint.

For clarity, I did not actually donate, I was able to generate an invoice for a $2,500 donation, including a payment address and BTC amount to pay. If they provide a payment address, I think it is reasonable to believe they will accept the payment without requiring additional KYC validation.

I was able to repeat the above process just now, and I also just checked the donation link, and they still have crypto as a means to donate. My guess is they wrote that tweet in order to placate the libs.

It doesn't appear they actually paused donations (although they may in the near future stop accepting crypto donations).

The outrage is around the impact that bitcoin has on the ability to implement the green new deal. Without bitcoin, implementing the green new deal would mean rolling blackouts wherever the GND is implemented, but with bitcoin, it would mean that bitcoin consumes all available energy

We should not be surprised for this change of heart from Mozilla, because we know there are a lot of people who really hate Bitcoin and anything related with crypto.
I think this was caused by one of their brainwashed developers or ex-developers Jamie Zawinski who said that cryptocurrencies are planet-incinerating ponzi's  
If he really believes that, than I am afraid there is not much hope for him left:
https://twitter.com/jwz/status/1478022085737803776

This is all ridiculous.

The faux outrage on Twitter was ridiculous. Any excuse to turn a blind eye to fossil fuels and a few billion barrels of oil being dumped in to the oceans, right? That's irrelevant, but as long as we get rid of the handful of bitcoin donations Mozilla were receiving then the planet has been saved! I can continue driving my gas guzzler to the store to buy goods flown in from the other side of the world which have been wrapped in explicable amounts of plastic, all of which I will dump in to a landfill or burn. Let's ignore all the actual evidence that bitcoin uses more green energy than pretty much any other industry in the world and actually incentivizes the development of more green infrastructure.

And Mozilla's response to this has been equally ridiculous. The fact that it seems the opinion of two people who are no longer involved in the project can dictate the direction of the project is very concerning. It also removes a source of funding, which Mozilla seem to desperately need since the number of active Firefox users has been steadily declining over the last few years.

Alternate browsers are all a mess. Chrome is literal spyware and I cannot fathom why millions of people freely install it on their system. You couldn't pay me to use a system with Chrome installed on it. Others like Edge and Safari are not much better. Brave is pretty much controlled by Binance and shares data with Binance, so is another no go if you want any shred of privacy left in your life. Tor is the only viable alternative, but the vast majority of people will refuse to use it for all the usual reasons.

Hopefully the recently announced DuckDuckGo desktop browser will be as good as their mobile one.

Just now, I was able to attempt to donate $2,500 to Mozilla by providing fake personal details. I was not asked to verify any of my information and was provided an address to donate/send to.

If you donate under whatever bitpay's threshold is ($3000?), you do not have to disclose your identity (you have to provide your name, but it is in no way verified), nor create an account.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect to be able to donate 3 separate times, amounts near BitPay's limit before they make you verify your identity in order to donate. If you have that kind of money to donate, it is reasonable to expect the person is in a high tax bracket. So before you have been forced to verify your identity, you will have already given up thousands of dollars in reduced tax liability.

The cost of a VPN is generally in the range of $20-$40 per year. The annual cost of most other privacy measures is similarly nominal.

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I don't think every donor that disclosed their identity for tax purposes is listed on that website. I would presume people have the option to not make their identity public, but still receive a receipt for their donation so they can receive a deduction for the donation.

In "this blog" post, they mentioned, "Mozilla supporters were asking for it and they just fulfilled that request".

In my eyes, he just lost some of his credibility for generalizing everything and indirectly pointing to BTCitcoin as a "Ponzi grifter"!
^{- I may not be a developer, but I can easily identify if someone is a lunatic or not... In this case, both of the developers in question belong to this category [apart from the possibility of having ulterior motives]!}

The reasons that were mentioned did not seem convincing to me, so I decided to dig a little deeper and see what I found.

Mozilla co-founder Jamie Zawinski tweeted:


also, Peter Linss (designed the Gecko browser engine used in the Firefox browser)


It seems that the problem is either related to a misunderstanding on the part of many of the project developers, or that they have other investments (such as investments in the environment or the banking sector) that may be affected by Mozilla's acceptance of cryptocurrencies.

In general, the societal discussion ("important discussion" about the environmental impact of digital assets) is not intended for ordinary people but rather the founders.

Read more and sources

Well, looks like it didn't age well. According to their latest tweet, they stated that they will review the cryptocurrencies donation over environmental concerns. That's made me wonder what's the reason they accept cryptocurrency donation in the first place if they didn't thoughtfully consider according to their climate goals area. Which make me agree with what NeuroticFish said regarding this and OP, they just taking the opportunity.

It would be good news, but they're using BitPay. It's probably worst possible option to use. Offcourse, for Mozilla it doesn't matter much as long as they're getting donations.
Still, Mozilla is my prefered browser, but no way that I'm going to donate them Bitcoin through BitPay.
Exactly. I didn't even know that donation is tax deductable thing in US. But here is my country, there is no such thing, so, not disclosing KYC details is not stubborn, it's common sense.
If I would want to donate to Mozilla, I'll rather use fiat than Bitcoin through BitPay.

And yet, if you look at the list of large donations for Tails (https://tails.boum.org/sponsors/index.en.html), there are dozens of large anonymous donations, including 300 Monero, 7 Bitcoin, and 50,000 euros. Since donations lower than $1,000 are not listed, there will be likely be hundreds more anonymous donations at these levels.

If you think paying to protect your privacy is stubborn, that's fine. You don't get to decide for everyone else though. People pay for VPNs, VPSs, email hosting, various pieces of software, entirely separate hardware and devices, etc., all in the name of protecting their privacy. If they want to protect their privacy by not claiming a few bucks of tax relief, then that's their prerogative. And of course, there are countries other than US which will have different laws and requirements regarding claiming tax relief.

All these other companies accept anonymous bitcoin and other crypto donations directly. There is no reason that Mozilla can't do the same.

Again, if you don't disclose your KYC information, you are giving up what could amount to ~50% of the value of your donation in the form of a tax deduction. So if there was a way to donate to them without disclosing your KYC information, doing so would effectively mean you are paying 50% of your donation in the name of "privacy".

To be frank, if you are complaining about the entity that you disclose your KYC information, in order to claim a tax deduction, or if you are wanting to not disclose your KYC information (which will result in you not receiving 50% of your donation back), you are just being stubborn.

BTW, I would also be hesitant to support the tor project in general, as IMO, it really just gives people a false sense of privacy.

Donations to all the entities I listed above are tax deductible as well. Tor provides an option to give your name alongside your donation to receive an acknowledgement document from them for tax purposes (or to donate anonymously if you wish). Tails give an email address you can contact to receive a donation receipt if you want one. If I want to claim tax deduction on my donation, then I'd be much happier giving only my name to the Tor project than I would giving my full KYC info and scans of documents to BitPay.

Tor and Tails both accept Monero, and both have offices in the US. It can be done if there is the will to do it, but I agree with NeuroticFish that Mozilla seem to just be looking for the easiest solution. Disappointing.

My rough guess: while accepting Monero makes total sense for a privacy-focused entity, I'm guessing that it's just going to be a total pain in the arse for the Mozilla Foundation. You know, the authorities and stuff. As far as I know their main office is still in the US.

Donations to Mozilla are tax-deductible. In order to claim a deduction on your tax return, you will generally need to give identifying information to the entity you are donating to (or their agent), so they can produce the documentation you need to support the donation in the event you are audited. I doubt many people, privacy-conscious or otherwise, are going to forgo a tax deduction so they can incrementally improve their privacy.

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This is also not new, nor is it news. According to their FAQ, they have been accepting bitcoin since November 2019.

I tend to agree with about reply above, it's a good move for them.
I remember before that Mozilla has announced accepting Bitcoin in a donation and that was in November last year and now they have 4 cryptocurrencies that can be used in sending donations.

I don't see any especially on that news because Bitcoin adoption has already been announced, so now they are accepting doge that has a low market cap and low transaction.

Anyway, that's good news.

You are completely right.

And about the BitPay route: my take is that they didn't care that much. Way too many still don't care about bitcoin to HODL or take care to handle it themselves. For them it was an opportunity - make some waves, get some more (fiat) funds (and customers) - while showing support to the new technology. Maybe someday they'll do the next steps too.