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by tazu 822 days ago
I wish there was an easy way to handle subscriptions with crypto. Like if MetaMask or other wallet apps agreed on a "pull-based" billing system. That would probably never happen, but I can dream.

As an operator, I'd also want a smart contract that collects payments from a list of tokens/altcoins and immediately converts it to USDC.

1 comments

You can do that by making a smart contract that the payee can only pull X amount from on certain block intervals, and the payer can deposit and withdraw from a often as they like. It would essentially be a checking account.

Also re: auto converting tokens - you can jusr make a service to do that, it doesn't have to be a smart contract. A smart contract probably could be used with a DEX though, but I think that may be needlessly complex.

> You can do that by making a smart contract that the payee can only pull X amount from on certain block intervals, and the payer can deposit and withdraw from a often as they like. It would essentially be a checking account.

This is super interesting. Has anyone done this?

Honestly it's pretty trivial. I haven't tested it (it does at least compile), but I had GPT-4 write a contract for this[0]. Obviously don't use this for anything meaningful, just meant to convey the idea. More features could be added to do things like allow the account creator to add / remove more payees with their own withdrawl rates, allow them to directly transfer to someone besides themselves (analogous to paying with a debit card).

[0] https://dpaste.org/NWFbE

> Honestly it's pretty trivial.

Literally no artist anywhere has ever received an actual payment from an actual customer with this method (I'm not counting the artist themselves making a test payment).

No, if Gumroad bans you, you can't just set up your own crypto smart contracts and make money that way. This is some academic crypto anarchist fantasy.

You can look at the code. It's like 50 lines. It is logically trivial. I was replying to a comment that called it "super interesting", which is why I pointed out how trivial it is.

> No, if Gumroad bans you, you can't just set up your own crypto smart contracts and make money that way.

For no reason other than people don't want to.

> For no reason other than people don't want to.

You're living in complete fantasy land. There are many reasons people find it hard to make payments in crypto, other than "just don't want to".

Again, I'm reiterating the point that artists need to eat food to live, and artists would be happy to set up payments in crypto, if that would lead to them gaining access to food. But it wouldn't, so they won't.

> You can look at the code. It's like 50 lines. It is logically trivial

Ah yes, the thing I always love to do before purchasing a naughty comic book: code reviews! I just love to read the code that verifies that my $2 purchase of a comic book. I love sweating nervously and verifying that clicking this button will not have unforeseen consequences, such as one where I lose my house because I missed something in code review. wHy dOEsNT evERyONe jUSt uSE crYPtO