What information do I need from someone if they are going to donate Bitcoin?

[laredotornado]

Hi,

We are trying to create an app using the Coinbase API that will allow someone to donate Bitcoin to our organization. I am new to crypto-currency, so my question is, what information do we need to collect from someone in order to facilitate this?

If it simplifies things, we can assume that person has a Coinbase wallet.

Thanks, - Dave

[GreyWyvern]

Do you mean for tax purposes? Or to honour them for their donation somewhere on your website?

Because to just accept Bitcoin donations there is literally zero information you need to collect from the person donating. You just put your Bitcoin address on your site somewhere and anyone can send you coins, zero information required.

[laredotornado]

Yeah but if we're creating a form where someone wants to donate, what information do we collect from them? I mean, obviously there would be a field for the amount of Bitcoin they want to donate, but then I assume we need their wallet address or some password or something. On the back-end we can then take this information and deposit the money into the wallet we have set up.

As a parallel, if someone is donating via credit card, we would collect the credit card number, the security code, the expiration date and possibly billing info, before passing taht on to the payment processor. So I'm wondering what the equivalent is for Bitcoin.

[nandibear]

Yeah but if we're creating a form where someone wants to donate, what information do we collect from them? I mean, obviously there would be a field for the amount of Bitcoin they want to donate, but then I assume we need their wallet address or some password or something. On the back-end we can then take this information and deposit the money into the wallet we have set up.

As a parallel, if someone is donating via credit card, we would collect the credit card number, the security code, the expiration date and possibly billing info, before passing taht on to the payment processor. So I'm wondering what the equivalent is for Bitcoin.

A simple and effective way would be to say (on your site or your app) "hey this is our Bitcoin address - (whatever your bitcoin address is goes here) please send a us a Bitcoin donation!"

[bitkilo]

Yeah but if we're creating a form where someone wants to donate, what information do we collect from them? I mean, obviously there would be a field for the amount of Bitcoin they want to donate, but then I assume we need their wallet address or some password or something. On the back-end we can then take this information and deposit the money into the wallet we have set up.

As a parallel, if someone is donating via credit card, we would collect the credit card number, the security code, the expiration date and possibly billing info, before passing taht on to the payment processor. So I'm wondering what the equivalent is for Bitcoin.

As our member GreyWyvern already mentioned all you need to give anyone that wants to donate bitcoin to your is the QR code of your bitcoin address or the address itself. Most wallets will have an option for you to copy the QR code to post elsewhere.
If all you have is your bitcoin address then you can enter that to your forum profile here and the QR code for the wallet address will be displayed as mine is below my username (if you are using a cell phone to connect then you will see my QR code once you click on my profile)

[laredotornado]

Thanks for your responses but that still doesn't answer my question. I don't want to just paste our wallet key out there and say "Donate". I want to create a form where folks enter their information adn then we process things on the back-end. If its still not clear what I'm asking, then tough one for me.

[GreyWyvern]

Thanks for your responses but that still doesn't answer my question. I don't want to just paste our wallet key out there and say "Donate". I want to create a form where folks enter their information adn then we process things on the back-end. If its still not clear what I'm asking, then tough one for me.

I think you might be mis-understanding the nature of a Bitcoin transaction. It sounds like you think a transaction is something like a credit card, where you can take down someone's number and then apply a charge to it.

Bitcoin is a more active system where the sender always actively approves the transaction, so it needs to be done with that in mind.

What you could do is create a form that allows the user to specify the amount they would like to donate first. This form would also collect the other information you would require. Then when the user submits the form, the result page of your script could generate a QR code (and address) using BIP 21 that requests a specific amount. The user would then use their app to scan that code, (or copy and paste the address) and the amount requested should show up for them to confirm.

See here for more info on the URI syntax: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/ma ... .mediawiki

As described in the document, you would encode a URI similar to this into a QR code:

bitcoin:175tWpb8K1S7NmH4Zx6rewF9WQrcZv245W?amount=0.01

Such a URI should request 0.01 BTC from the user. I haven't tested anything I wrote above, so please test it yourself!

[AlexFerson]

need a key number

[bangteh]

blockchain technology is quite good for fast transaction as Roger Ver speech "you can send money to anyone in the planet, you just need to have wallet and internet"...if some other country in trouble or disaster...we can easily donate using bitcoin...this make fast money flow to them ....

[OneChain]

Whole purpose is for Bitcoin to be anonymous, I think it should be left as that.