Experimental male contraceptive project Vasalgel received a Bitcoin donation valued at $13,000 last month. Unfortunately, the donation was declined and sent back by Vasalgel’s payment processor.
Via a Facebook post , Vasalgel announced the failed donation and pleaded with the would-be donor to repeat the attempt: “OMG, someone just tried to donate $13,000 of Bitcoins to support Vasalgel development, but it was declined because it’s over the $10,000 daily limit! Bitcoin is totally anonymous, so we can’t contact them to let them know they can split the donation. Whoever you are, please try again!” Donation rejected because of BitPay’s transaction limit
The Parsemus Foundation, which is responsible for the development of the experimental contraception, uses BitPay to process Bitcoin donations. According to Vasalgel, the donation was rejected because it hit BitPay’s $10,000 limit. The limit has since been raised so that future donation attempts will not be sent back.
Because of Bitcoin’s pseudonymous and distributed nature, it is impossible to tell who sent the donation, or either invalidate the transaction or reverse that invalidation. Additionally, sending back to the original address does not guarantee that the original donor will be able to receive that donation back.
At time of writing, the would-be donor has still not been identified, and the donation has not been re-attempted. Traditional financial restrictions go against what makes Bitcoin great
The refusal of Vasalgel’s donation represents a challenge only presented to Bitcoin users who go through a third-party platform such as BitPay following traditional financial regulations, according to Wall of Coins CEO Robert Genito. “Just hold onto the coins and not allow the customer to use them until the customer supplies more information on their business. Who’s to say the [sic] donator has access to that private key still? Who’s to say the [sic] donator doesn’t have to […]
