[tor-bugs] #18911 [User Experience/Website]: bitcoin donations via BitPay don't work properly for tor users (BitPay uses Cloudflare)

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#18911: bitcoin donations via BitPay don't work properly for tor users (BitPay uses
Cloudflare)
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 Reporter:  cypherpunks              |          Owner:  Sebastian
     Type:  defect                   |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Medium                   |      Milestone:
Component:  User Experience/Website  |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                   |     Resolution:
 Keywords:                           |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                           |         Points:
 Reviewer:                           |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by cypherpunks):

 Tough question. A vast majority of btc exchangers are CloudFlare.

 Another problem with the donation mechanism is that it gives a margin to
 bitpay and donors are not told up front.  A bitcoin donor would expect
 100% of their btc to go to torproject, which torproject could then store
 and spend directly as needed.

 Perhaps whaleclub.co can simulate the effect of storing bitcoin.
 Whaleclub is a broker that only accepts bitcoin deposits and bitcoin
 withdrawals, and doesn't use any CDN (so no MitM).  A btc contribution
 could be immediately converted to USD, gold, or stock, and be stored as
 such.  Then when torproject needs to spend bitcoin, they could convert the
 USD or whatever back into bitcoin the moment spending it is needed.  Does
 this help?

 A few other bitcoin sites that don't use CF:

 FXChoice, TradersWay, 796.com

 796.com uses Incapsula as a CDN.

 xCFD: I hesitate to mention them, because they outsource the btc->usd
 conversion to gocoin.com, and gocoin.com is a cloudflare site.  Cloudflare
 seems to be bypassed by xCFD.  But in any case, it's still not good to
 feed a CF site so xCFD should be a last option.

 I'm not necessarily endorsing these sites as I don't use them, but they
 should be examined.  I suggest starting with Whaleclub, FXChoice, and
 TradersWay.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18911#comment:5>
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