Donating and Ongoing development of the Monero Project is solely supported by donations and sponsors.At this time the project is vastly underfunded, and thus donations are greatly appreciated.If you would like to make a donation you can do so by using any of the methods below: , or directly to our Monero donation address - 44AFFq5kSiGBoZ4NMDwYtN18obc8AemS33DBLWs3H7otXft3XjrpDtQGv7SqSsaBYBb98uNbr2VBBEt7f2wfn3RVGQBEP3A , or directly to our Bitcoin address: 1KTexdemPdxSBcG55heUuTjDRYqbC5ZL8H Sponsorships are also greatly appreciated, including those companies that give us free or reduced-cost access to development hardware, hosting and other services, and software licenses. Current sponsors include several mining pools that contribute a portion of their fees to development.You can find a list of these pools in the first post on the Monero thread on Bitcointalk.Over and above that, our sponsors include: All donators to Monero development are also eligible to be listed in the Community Hall of Fame.

Members of the most prestigious level of donators, 8th Dan, are also listed below.The full Hall of Fame can be viewed at this link.Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.Article 19, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government—it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.bitcoin qt 32 bit

Its that time of year again, and I am reminded by the large banner at the top of Wikipedia.I have some spare change lying around, and I feel like showing my support to fellow programmers who maintain the software I use every day.I am a strong supporter of Bitcoin and naturally I wanted to use it for donations.I have had my Bitcoin address posted on my blog, and have had a few donations from readers (thank you!).One of the best things about Bitcoin is that anyone can send and receive money without needing to sign up for anything.rental starter bitcoinIt is a great way to quickly and convieniently transfer cash, and you can be sure that your transaction reaches the intended person without needing to interact with any middleman.mining litecoin performanceFirst, I compiled a list of the major OSS software products I rely on, as well as projects I truely believe in, and found the donation pages for each.litecoin amd cpu

I discovered that many of them do provide a way to pay with Bitcoin; however, the methods, formats, and requirements varied greatly.This is a perfect opportunity to provide a review on how easy or difficult it is to donate Bitcoin to websites today.I took my list and trimmed it down to a small subset of different examples.This post will be reviewing the Bitcoin donation methods for the following sites: I must really commend the Free Software Foundation and Qubes.ethereum how many confirmationsOf all the sites I reviewed, I feel these sites are the only ones who are doing it “right”.dogecoin developmentI want to bring special attention to this last point.Bitcoin addresses are almost impossible to remember and have no identifying features to link them to the owner.Hackers could exploit a website and change the address server-side, or a MitM attack could allow the address to be spoofed on the client side (the latter is especially true if using Tor, where the exit node can replace webpage content).

For these reasons, Bitcoin addresses displayed on webpages should have an accompanying GPG signature to prove ownership and eliminate the risk of tampering.A special mention to the folks at Armory.They have set up a donation matching program, where they provide signed addresses and a method for verifying the signatures.Curiously, they do not sign their own address on their website (even though it can be obtained from their software).Many sites had a static address displayed, but failed to provide a QR code for scanning.In fact, of all the I sites reviewed, only the following had QR codes for their static addreses: Many other sites use Bitpay or Coinbase to do dynamic addresses: temporary addresses that “timeout” after a short amount of time.Bitpay is an indespensible tool for merchants that also makes things very easy for the user; for example, on a webpage a user could specify how much they want to donate, and Bitpay will create a special QR code that tells Bitcoin clients to make a transaction for that amount.

This interaction reduces the chance of mistyping an amount (remember, Bitcoin transactions cannot be revoked).Each transaction is isolated to a single address.Cycling addresses increases privacy for both the sender and receiver.It also makes creating a receipt easier, and helps clear up any confusion.In fact, the Bitcoin developers themselves discourage address reuse.Here is an example from the Freedom of the Press Foundation: Note, don’t actually use that address, it is expired!Bitpay’s temporary addresses are a blessing and a curse; You cannot sign a temporary address.This also means I cannot share that address with anyone else if I want to promote that website or service; users are required to visit the page, fill out the form, and get their own temporary address to send to.I can’t build up an “address book” of websites/services and their payment address.RiseUp was the only site I could find that did dynamic addresses without using a 3rd party service like BitPay or Coinbase.

Furthermore, they claim that they maintain the private key for the dynamically generated address, and that it doesn’t expire.While the approach is novel, I think it leads to the worst of both worlds; they lost the ability to sign their addresses while at the same time didn’t receive the other benefits of temporary addresses granted by a service like BitPay.Furthermore, anyone is able to cause RiseUp to generate a new address, but they must keep and manage each generated address, which could be troublesome.Finally, if you go with the “address-book” method, the dynamically generated addresses are per-person, which promotes tracking.Address Reuse By now you may have noticed that I am making some contradictions.I labeled the display of a static address as the “right way”, then immediately followed up with the Bitcoin Dev’s recommendations against address reuse.Remember that this post is in the context of donations.I think the distinction here is that something like Bitpay is perfect (and correct) for sales transactions where I buy a product or service, and displaying a static address is better for donations where I want to ensure the correct recipient gets the money.

If I am buying something online, I typically don’t care where the money goes as long as I receive what I bought.For example, Amazon heavily utilizes 3rd party merchants, to the point where I rarely notice whether I am paying Amazon directly or some other store.With donations, I am not receiving anything in return other than the reassurance that I am supporting something I believe in, so it becomes more important to verify that the correct entity is receiving my donation.Signatures on static addresses solve this problem.I’m interested in hearing other arguments or solutions!Of all the forms I came across, the one for Eclipse was the by far the mosts intuitive and clear: The form is short and 100% optional.There is even a little checkbox to stay anonymous.Preselected donation amounts are available, as well as a box to specify your own number.I especially liked how I didn’t have to scroll all over the page looking for the Bitcoin option; many of the sites I looked at hide the Bitcoin address at the bottom or side of their donation page instead of integrating that option in with the others.

Don’t misunderstand, I am very happy that Bitcoin was an option for donations.However, I feel that some of these sites are missing the point; A Bitcoin transaction doesn’t need any other information besides an address.If you want to receive a donation, you shouldn’t need a name, address, email, phone number, etc required.Just take the money!For example, the EFF requires my name, email, and shipping address to receive a Bitcoin donation: Wikipedia also requires a shipping address.Why is this information needed?What are they going to send me?Why can’t I opt out?Even Mozilla won’t let me send them a Bitcoin donation without an email address: What could they need an email address for?No need, the blockchain is a public ledger that replaces the need for a receipt.A thank you message?No need, afterall, I’m the one thanking you with my donation!Signing me up on an email list?Most likely, and I don’t need more spam.Sorry guys, but you are missing the point.This tells me you are more interested in my information than my support.

Unfortunately, Bitcoin still hasn’t hit critical mass.By now, many people have at least heard of it, but the average person doesn’t understand how to use it, how it works, or its benefits.There are still many websites that do not have a Bitcoin donation option.Some of the programs I use every day did not accept Bitcoin, however they did take PayPal.The surprising one here was Debian.Not only do they not take Bitcoin, they don’t even take Paypal.Their preferred methods of payment are credit card or check.Look at how much stuff I need to fill out to donate: This right here is a prime example of how amazingly simple Bitcoin is.However, they do bring up some very interesting points that offer a unique perspective on why accepting Bitcoin donations can be difficult, especially for a large organization: As you can see, there is a huge disparity in how different websites accept Bitcoin donations.Hopefully this post can give you ideas on how to accept Bitcoin donations on your own website.