1 (edited by pushkill 2014-07-01 21:57:28)

Topic: Chumby and crypto-currencies

I was so happy to see my chumby's come back to life today. Its been so long and it got me to thinking about the game changers that have been popping up since Chumby went dormant. Once of those is crypto-currencies, especially bitcoin. A way to market chumby and bring on new users would be to accept bitcoin and other cryptos such as litecoin and dogecoin as payment for widget subscriptions. This could bring in a whole new demographic of users and widget developers (a chumby price ticker for BTC? yes please!) and could really prove to be a niche for chumby. Partnering with coinbase or other crypto payment companies could help usher in the second life for chumby.

Re: Chumby and crypto-currencies

I don't know if this idea would work. Bitcoin/dogecoin/whatever that Kanye West cryptocurrency is called fluctuate wildly in value, so you'd get complaints of the price for subscription fluctuating as well. In addition to this, the Bitcoin exchanges go down all the time, taking user money with them (Mt.Gox, anyone?) and the wallet services aren't much better. I can't speak for Duane, but it doesn't seem to be a very good way to run a service that *must* be in the black at all times. However, Bitcoin donations might work to drum up "buzz" and a Bitcoin widget that tracks the value of Bitcoin through whatever the biggest exchange is now seems pretty cool.

Re: Chumby and crypto-currencies

It looks like Chumby's payment processor is already beta testing Bitcoin support (stripe.com/bitcoin), so it could happen one day if TPTB choose to allow it. I, for one, would like to see that option.

I don't know how Stripe will work, but many (most?) payment processors can convert Bitcoin to USD immediately on receipt so that the receiver doesn't have to worry about price fluctuations, only the sender does. I suspect it would require some sort of prepay-for-a-year option though.

Re: Chumby and crypto-currencies

I would love to see a BTC price widget