![Should the Church Use Bitcoin? [Discussion]](https://churchm.ag/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/church-bitcoin-image.png)
In recent history the Church has been slow to adopt new technology or even flat-out reject it.
This is why most churches have yet to adopt an online giving solution or the even more modern mobile giving.
So what about Bitcoin?
Should churches accept Bitcoin?
What about those of us who are geeky cool enough to have some Bitcoin-age to our name? Wouldn’t it be nice to tithe some?
If you take a look at this infographic below, you’ll see that the Bitcoin is not only still going strong, but many reputable companies have started accepting it.
![Should the Church Use Bitcoin? [Infographic]](https://churchm.ag/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/bitcoin-growth-2016-infographic.jpg)
Please leave your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to hear what you think.
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Eric Dye
Support Lead at Valet, and Proprietor of DYECASTING. Human by day, gamer at night, lover of coffee, and all things spicy.
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If your church was in an area very heavily dominated by tech early adopters maybe accepting Bitcoin would be worth considering. For the average church, the tiny amount of extra giving it might fuel is at least for the near future not worth the extra admin, accounting and IT security hassles it would likely cause.
Also, churches should be very good stewards of the money entrusted to them, I would have concerns about whether it’s wise stewardship for churches to be dealing in currencies like bitcoin that not only have volatile exchange rates but have a higher risk than most of collapsing entirely.
Not much of a discussion here. I think it’s because you nailed it! I agree Joanna.
OK, I’ll take the opposing view here . . .
Our church has accepted bitcoin donations for quite some time now. It’s proven to be a very worthwhile program, and I’m constantly surprised more churches don’t accept bitcoin. You can see our bitcoin donation page here:
http://ferncreekumc.org/bitcoin/
For U.S. taxpayers who hold appreciated bitcoin (which is now nearly everyone who holds bitcoin, since we’re near the all-time high), there are significant tax advantages to donating bitcoin. Effectively, it works very similarly to donating appreciated stock. Except it’s actually much easier for a church to accept bitcoin donations than stock donations. I think Joanna’s response makes some incorrect assumptions about the hassles, benefits, exchange rate risk, etc.
All the hassle and risk can be easily managed by using a service like BitPay or Coinbase. After using both, I recommend BitPay for this application. Once you’ve established your BitPay account, your web person can add the donation capability to your site in a matter of minutes. And it’s easy to configure your account to automatically convert any bitcoin donations into USD (or perhaps some other local fiat currency, depending on your preference).
So donors send bitcoin, and dollars just show up automatically in your your bank account. I can’t imagine how it could be any easier, or less hassle. And there is zero exchange rate risk. (We could debate whether it’s better stewardship to hold church funds in a currency that fluctuates but has out-performed every other currency on the planet over the last 6 years vs. a currency that doesn’t fluctuate as much but is guaranteed to slowly decrease in value over time. But assuming you prefer the latter, you can have it with no hassle at all.)
In short, there’s very little effort required to accept bitcoin donations. And basically zero added risk if you choose to convert automatically to local fiat currency. And beyond the bitcoin donations from regular contributors, which have been nearly 2% of total donations, we regularly receive small microdonations equivalent to a few cents or a few dollars from anonymous donors all over the planet.
There’s a good reason why major charities like United Way and the American Red Cross accept bitcoin donations. And our experience over the past couple years has shown it to be very worthwhile for small local churches. To Eric’s original point, the Church has a history of being slow to adopt new technologies. And in this case, I’d say it’s only hurting itself.
Tim,
Great comment, would love to talk to you more about this. As we have a church in Honduras of all places and I can see the benefit, that many people who do support us in the US can donate this year for our needed projects.
Also with the growth that is happening, it seems like a no-brainer that the donation does increase in value over time- unless a burst happens, but I really don’t see that happening due to the Millions of investors putting millions of dollars into this.
I am still challenged to personally get some Bitcoin, wife is totally against it. Which does not help my cause due to her mom and dad are the pastors here- . LOL
Pray for me!
BTW we do live broadcast from our church mostly every Sunday and are getting a decent following even with the cheap equipment we have, so if we can get bit coin to upgrade our equipment that would be a huge value for not only us but everyone that TUNES in to learn more about God and the Bible from my father in law who has been in Ministry for over 50+ years.
With mobile being the mainstay of technology here, Bitcoin is the answer to many problems that can be corrected. I even heard banks are looking at how they can incorporate Bitcoin into their systems- which I do not want. They already make a killing on everything they do for us.
BiblePay (BBP) is a new Christian & Charity cryptocurrency launched July 23rd 2017 http://biblepay.org/
10% of mined coins go to Charity, the project is already funding 175+ Orphans monthly through the Charity Compassion International (http://www.compassion.com/)
If it is easy for our church to convert Bitcoin to our currency – Not US specific, but that would help as well. The benefit I see is when it is donated- the value does go up, at what point do you cash out to purchase needs for the church? Can it be converted right after the donation?