Support for cryptocurrency payments

Agreed, I think that would be great!

I'm currently building a simple database-driven membership system on our instance. How difficult would it be to develop (unless an open-source solution already exists) a cryptocurrency-based system for dues/contributions and expense payouts (similar to Open Collective).

@mayel Supporting one-off payments (which is what I had in mind, as a first step) is relatively easy to accomplish. Automatic recurring payments are different challenge and even more so with cryptocurrency as protocols like Bitcoin don't support deduction without users signing each transaction. That being said an automatic invoicing system could be possible where users can choose invoicing frequency e.g per mth, per quarter.

However, I would suggest a prepaid invoicing system, similarly to any hosting provider would offer. Users can top-up their accounts with a currency of their choice, all converted to Bitcoin (for simpler admin on our end) and we deduct from their balance on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis.

I can explore and propose a solution(s) around June. Presumably, this effort is not on our critical path for May 22nd since we have alternate solution in Opencollective. Let me know otherwise.

This would be pretty excellent. But one thing OC offers is a legal back-end. Can you provide that?

@ntnsndr I assume by 'legal back-end' you mean monies are transmitted via a registered entity namely OpenCollective Inc? I see your point ... Long-term I understand there will be a registered entity behind social.coop? In this case there should be no issue. In the short-term Seedbloom would be more than happy to be that entity and would be willing to sponsor the creation of a terms of service specific to this engagement. And wouldn't charge a fee on transactions ;)

Looking deeper into their terms of service. It appears the 'Host' whoever that is for social.coop bears the brunt of legal responsibility, at least in the event of redistribution of funds e.g.

"Taxes. It is the Host’s responsibility to determine what, if any taxes apply to collection of contributions and disbursement of expense reimbursements, including, for example, sales, use, value added, and similar taxes. It is also the Host’s responsibility to withhold, collect, report and remit the correct taxes to the appropriate tax authorities. Open Collective is not responsible for withholding, collecting, reporting, or remitting any sales, use, value added, or similar tax arising from any transaction completed via the Platform."

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1HRYVADHN1-4B6wGCxIA6dx28jHtcAVIvt95hkjEZVQE/pub

Hello All I Has been following this thread which of course is important for me. From faircoop ecosystem we also can cover cryptocurrency payment, legal responsability and so on. For example using fairpay online wallet, we could cover recurrent payments. Anyway I has been looking to seedbloom and seems interesting. Victor, we should talk and coordinate efforts, to provide a full financial framework for platform coops!

Thanks, @victormatekole, what you're saying about OC really is concerning. I thought they covered us better than this.

And yes, it would be great to see coordination between Seedbloom and FairCoop!

-- "Thanks, @victormatekole, what you're saying about OC really is concerning. I thought they covered us better than this. "

I like OC's initiative and support for the opensource ecosystem but unfortunately they have architected their business and platform using traditional rentier design (together with taking least responsibility in the transaction and using Paypal as a defacto regulator, the worst!).

In their defense, if OC took greater responsibility they would have to perform Anti-money laundering on project owners and recipients of payments. Increasing cost and killing user experience.

If I was building OC today it would be on a p2p model — backers put into a multi-signature wallet (escrow) and redistribution of funds would be directly to creditors — reducing the project owner's or OC's legal responsibility/liability. Make OC a coop and then you have a 'fullstack decentralised' business. And you can lower fees from 5% to 1% and retain similar level of profits, perhaps increase them as payments are friction-less.

@enric2 I am fully booked this wk — message me on victor@seedbloom.it

I appreciate the detail of this conversation. No pressure to respond quickly but when there's a chance please update us?

And, will someone be able to produce a primer or some kind of introduction with a simple step-by-step process to ratchet people into this non-traditional system? I want to be in here, on it, and with ya' all. I'm still not. I know I'm not the only one with the ambition to join this brave new wave but a lack of time to do adequate self-study and figure it out.

@stephaniejokent @enric2 and I will meet on May 22nd to discuss pot. collab on this particular effort... We'll update this thread accordingly.

Great to hear. I'd love to see this develop, perhaps as a phase 2. We don't want to put the rest of the work on hold tho

Another option (maybe complementary to a crypto solution) could be to use a service like https://donorbox.org/ which uses standard payment processors (like Stripe) with regular fees (compared to OpenCollective's commission) and has useful back-end tools.
If we're gonna have an expense approval process on Loomio anyway, and several places/currencies in which to receive contributions, maybe be worth researching the best solution for each piece of the puzzle, making sure they can be glued together...

Hey all,

Just wanted to give you an update on discussions between Enric and I. Here is a summary:

— SB to provide tech. solution that supports payments in multiple crypto currencies and FIAT. FIAT payments will be processed using Fairbill (provisional until feasibility assessment).

— All payments will be converted to FairCoin2. As FairCoin2 is essentially fixed in price this will offer greater stability over Bitcoin and more importantly support a currency that is more inline with our common values. The Bank of the Commons will ensure liquidity when funds need to be converted from FairCoin2 to FIAT currency, FairCoin2 is also listed on a number of exchanges too for additional liquidity support.

— Legal framework and support can be covered via https://freedomcoop.eu — Enric maybe able to provide further details to this. In order to have support social.coop must pay a €60 fee to become a member, Seedbloom would be happy to cover this if it proves a strain on social.coop budget.

— Victor, to provide a plan of action and break down in key proposals to have the members discuss and approve. This should be delivered in the coming wks.

Let me know if you need further information.

~victor

Awesome; thanks for the thoughtful work on this! At the Meeting Mayel and I had yesterday, we discussed the next call being focused on reviewing the proposed bylaws before submitting them to the group for final review and ratification. My thinking is that, once we've got that knocked out, this seems like the logical next step...

@matthewcropp Agreed. Happy to prioritise around other essential topics — I'm cognisant that the group can handle so much at anyone time. As far as the technical solution goes ... As aforementioned the intent first and foremost was for the benefit of Seedbloom and the wider open source community, so development can continue. We can customise for social.coop when the time is ready.

Link to the Bank of the Commons — http://bankofthecommons.coop/

They need a Mastodon account! :)

This is very interesting! Where can I find more info about their structure and reliability? Their "about" page is pretty thin on details...

Really exciting, wow. Thanks for all your work, friends.

Please keep in mind that the work we're doing here should be easily forkable into other, similar co-op clouds. Hopefully we're saving lots of other people a lot of work to come!

@ntnsndr Thanks for the link — I will take a look.... It's Seedbloom's modus operandi ti build with open source philosophy and focused on giving to the commons. The scope has widened quite a bit from SB's original requirements — so will take more time but in the long run I think it is going to be a huge benefit on many fronts. We'll probably look at rolling out parts piecemeal so not to lengthen overall delivery and more importantly get feedback as we develop. @mayel would be good to get your input/feedback once we have initial design worked out.

~victor

@michelekipiel — If you are referring to the Bank of the Commons — I believe they're just forming — hence the impending crowdsale (http://bankofthecommons.coop/membership/) denoted on their site. They're part of the https://fair.coop network/consortium. @enric2 is leading the project and should be able to provide you more details.

To be accurated is not that bankofthecommons is part of Faircoop, but Faircoop is part of bank of the commons. As you can see in the http://bankofthecommons.coop/who-we-are/
There is an open cofounding process where Faircoop is one of the cofounders.

Yes, officially membership begins tomorrow, but at same time part of the services will begin instantly, as some of the partners and cofounders contribute with already existing capacities, from day 0.

Actually tomorrow the list of first cofounders will be updated, and will be keeping updated until 15 of july. You are welcome to be part of the process!

Dear @victormatekole and @enric2 -

Question: Are any of these 'nonstandard' options available for traditional e-commerce such as taking registrations for an event and depositing them into a regular bank account?

Context:
a) I know nothing about any of this but want/need to learn.
b) Am designing an event called "Gathering Resilience" for this fall and need to create an online mechanism for collecting donations and registrations.
c) Would need the website to look 'normal' to people who (like me) know nothing about cryptocurrencies and this whole alternative cooperative way of doing money.

Is it possible? Can I get some direct instruction/mentoring? @mayel has been trying to bring me along but the reality is I haven't been able to keep up while still doing all the things I already know how to do (e.g., the ways in which I can contribute to the social evolution humanity needs). In other words, I need a lot of help to get started and will likely need a lot of support to maintain.

If neither of you are available, might you know someone who would be interested in taking me under wing?

Thanks! Forward! Hugs!

Hello Stephanie. If you mean receiving payments by credit/debit card which arrive to a bank account you can manage I can suggest fairbill.com + betabank.de. We are going to integrate also fairbill in bank of the commons but this will take a while..
you can use betabank by becoming members of them directly or as a member of freedomcoop.eu too

Thank you enric!

I am in the US, and we already have a bank account at a Savings and Loan (not a big bank but a local one).

Can I use Fairbill with Easthampton Savings Bank in Massachusetts? It seems the answer is no; only with the German bank. I think that may bring up more issues than it solves....the funds have to get from there to here, somehow, so they are cleanly associated with my LLC. Eventually we may be an actual non-profit or (more likely) a B-Corp, but that's a few years down the line.

At the moment I can't imagine how hosting this annual event could itself become a co-op structure. More like it will be an environment that supports and promotes co-ops to form.

About.Me ( http://about.me/stephanie.jo.kent ) and Learning Resiliency ( http://learningresiliency.com )

The payments on fairbill would be received in Germany, but this not means that are no connected to your entity. As a member of the coop providing the legal cover, the funds are liquid social capital of you inside the coop. For moving the funds to US, it is something that we could manage with Bank of the commons, as soon as we have an account in US where we can do this kind of settlements. There is already some contacts, I will inform when Bank of the commons in US is ready

Thank you! Sounds great :)

steph on the move