My ideal Gittip use case.

[bitcoinuser]

Hi, I'll describe my ideal Gittip use case.

1- I'll donate Bitcoins
2- I'll specify the maximum amount that I'll donate each week.
3- I'll have the option to create a list of people that I'll donate and specify the % that each person will receive.
4- Have an option to limit the amount that a specific person can receive each week. If I add a limit of 50 bitcoins and this person already "received" more than 50, the bitcoins that I'll donate to this person will automatically be redistributed to other users of my list.
5- On users profile will have statistics if the user really donated what he/she said will donate.
6- On users profile will have the information of total people said will donate and the total the person really received.

My English is bad, but I'll add more ideas on this issue. Anyone think the requests I did here is not good ? If yes, why?

[bitcoinuser]

7- I don't think gittip should store the users bitcoins. I don't like the idea of an ewallet, because the service can be hacked and all coins be lost. But we need a mechanism that is able to prove that a specific gittip user sent the bitcoins to another gittip user. How this can be done?

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks for weighing in, @bitcoinuser. (Yime from IRC, perhaps?). I've added this ticket to the milestone, "The Nexus." That's a whole group of related strategic decisions to be dealt with after we at least have minimal support for withdrawals outside the U.S. (#126).

[chadwhitacre]

On users profile will have statistics if the user really donated what he/she said will donate.

Can you unpack this for me? How would the user say they're donating but not actually donate?

[lyndsysimon]

I believe the OP is referring to the idea that Bitcoins are irrevocable - if we aren't storing them, then all we really have is a promise to pay.

As much as I love Bitcoin - and let me tell you, I love Bitcoin - that doesn't really fit very well. The idea is to create a "paycheck" that disburses at a reliable time each week.

There are BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals) dealing with this, and one that has been approved (BIP16) but it's not fully in place yet, and places an enormous burden on the tipper at this point in terms of being able to create and sign the transaction properly.

IMO, we should hold off implementing end-to-end Bitcoin support until the protocol is more mature and the supporting clients are able to fully utilize it. Allowing for one stage of the process to happen via Bitcoin sooner is the approach I would take. I especially like it for cross-border payments to tippees, but that's another Issue.

[clone1018]

Also worth noting: https://coinbase.com/

[chadwhitacre]

@clone1018 Coinbase is on the radar: https://github.com/zetaweb/www.gittip.com/issues/14#issuecomment-11196095.

I'm labeling this ticket bitcoin.

[chadwhitacre]

The bitcoin portion of this ticket is #14. The percentages thing is funds #449.