On transparency: The state of Voat, and Bitcoin ( conspiracy )

submitted by deathcomesilent

THIS IS NOT A CALL TO ARMS

This is however, a formal request for transparency.

The following post, is letter-for-letter what I posted in the comments of the "The State of Voat" thread that is currently at the top of all. My post starts below the line.

Your donations have helped tremendously to these offset expenses and we love each of you who donated, but we are on a whole new level now. Take for example that the total amount of all donations received didn’t entirely cover our first month in the cloud.

That's weird, because according to your old bitcoin donation address , you've only spent a about one fifth of the money we gave you guys.

I'm giving you guys the benefit of the doubt here, because I liked your site enough to donate, but I can personally promise you guys a PR shit storm if you don't have a satisfactory answer for why you need more money, with 46.8 BTC sitting untouched in your donation jar. Does $13K really not put a dent in it? Maybe you should release some expenses so we can verify your claims.

@atko and @PuttItOut , I truly hope I'm overreacting here.

deathcomesilent

Is he? I didn't realize anyone knew who his alter-ego actually was.

golisten2lennywhite2

I just sent money to that address so please let me know what you are on about.

OWNtheNWO

Are you including all the bandwidth costs from the Ddos in your calculations?

k_digi

It's all getting very interesting, I can tell you I have the design for a decentralized version of this site, it's kind of 'economically complex' on the back end, but I stick to my original premise that the costs were "driven up" to drive the site into 'corp funding'

It seems this way with the devs never asking for more donations + never promoting a donation vector.

The untouched cash is a little bit more evidence, I'm not at all against donations like the OP in fact I see it the other way, the lack of urgency for donations tells me this site is soon to be 'corp funded'

However this is a transition to a decentralized version.

If it is not 'Voat' it will be another site, then voat will be the poor cousin of the decentralized version.

grippinthagrain

Is this the part where Voat gets taken down for good and they come out 13k ahead?

definitelynotabot

Transparency is always good. One thing I wonder, how does a business deal with the tax implications of turning bitcoin into money? I mean, sure you can just sell the bitcoin and get a wire transfer, but what do you do when the tax man comes and says "hey, where'd this 13grand come from? you planning on claiming that as income?". Dealing with that may be whats preventing them from using the bitcoin.

HoneyNutStallmans

how does a business deal with the tax implications of turning bitcoin into money?

In most jurisdictions, it will be income. They "earned" the BTC as income.

There are no capital gains in Switzerland. If they exchange BTC for money, they do not have to worry about the diffence in the price when they bought it versus when they sold it.

...I also imagine they don't have to say anything about their income until it's time for the yearly filing. I don't know, ask someone Swiss.

Womb_Raider

This definitely needs to be addressed. Gonna archive this just in case.

redikulous

I'd like to think it's been hard to pay web-hosting fees etc using bitcoin and maybe they are just using fiat currencies to pay for now since it's easier?

Sciency

Couldn't they just sell the coins and pay cash or wire transfer though?

PaleRider

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now, but it would be nice to see a response.

chubnubbin

Transparency is never a bad thing.

HoneyNutStallmans

Unless you're wearing clothes...

mark132012

Then it's kinky.

RedHawk

This is a very important issue, I hope the mods can add a sticky to it ?

deathcomesilent

If they'd like to do so, they have my full permission to use my words and post as they see fit.

deathcomesilent

I've asked @atko and @PuttItOut to respond, but I'm sure it's been a VERY busy day for them (considering the size of the post they started this morning). However, if enough different users demand a response maybe a few of our comments will get addressed, so we can get some answers to the questions raised, and get back to the awesome platform that is Voat.