also sprach Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> [2014-08-26 19:43 -0700]:
> I believe Debian's major expenses are Debconf, team meetings
> (mostly travel and possibly some lodging and food), and computing
> hardware. I would be surprised if Bitcoin were useful for the
> first two. The latter seems likely to have the most potential to
> take Bitcoin.
The benefit of using Bitcoin for DebConf and sprints is to be able
to reimburse people without the costs of cash or international money
transfer. This is, in fact, one of the main ways I could see Debian
use Bitcoin.
I follow your argument about volatility and that assets are not
valued in Bitcoin, but Bitcoin amounts are calculated on the spot.
I think this will change with time, but it certainly is not the case
yet for things like computer hardware.
So yes, even if we thought that Bitcoin was useful as
a reimbursement means, we could buy them on the spot to send.
Then we simply pay commission twice, once to sell, once to buy. And
with this ins mind, the effort involved, and the fact that we are
not even facing this sort of problem right now, as Debian holds
a whopping 0.1 BTC (in my hands), I think we could certainly say
that Debian will hold up to 10 BTC (or make it 5, or 2, the actual
number doesn't matter and can be amended) as a buffer and only
sell/buy above that limit.
I see this less as endorsement and more as liquidity.
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@d.o> @martinkrafft
: :' : proud Debian developer
`. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck
`- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems
"the worst part of being old is remembering when you was young."
-- alvin straight (the straight story)
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