51–60 of 447 posts
So you buy bitcoins with dollars, Bitpay exchanges the bitcoins back into dollars, and then they hand the dollars over to Steam. And this is meant to be a good thing?
Honestly, why do you care what Valve does with the BTC? If people want to use it, so be it. The backend isn't your concern.
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I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?
It's because it's not just comprised of tech people, who are excited about its theoretical underpinnings, but also by business savvy people, who know that it will hardly fly for numerous reasons (and if a similar technology ever catches up, it will have so many government imposed regulations as to be totally different), plus old jaded tech persons who know a marginal at best tech and/or snake oil when they see it. As…
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Then I'm converting dollars to bitcoin via my electricity bill, with even more inefficiency.
Then don't?
And that's before they even learn about the deep security issues, how hard it is to protect, how most Bitcoin services cannot be trusted, etc.
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Do you mean cash or Paypal & Co?
Cash, visa MasterCard etc. - there are many banking options. There is only one Bitcoin network, and it is currently very centralized.
But each of those payment provider you pick holds your assets and can restrict your transactions any time. With Bitcoin that is not possible.
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What about refunds? With Paypal you know you're getting the same amount back, in the same currency, as if you haven't bought anything at all. Given the fluctuating nature of Bitcoin, surely that's not possible?
Can you ever take money out of steam?
I was really surprised that the announcement that Steam may support Bitcoin made waves a while ago, yet the announcement that it actually does did not. I used it to buy a (horrible) game last night, and it worked beautifully. Contrast with PayPal, with which Steam is always confused about where I am and whether it should charge me in GBP or EUR. I'm never not using Bitcoin again.
What about refunds? With Paypal you know you're getting the same amount back, in the same currency, as if you haven't bought anything at all. Given the fluctuating nature of Bitcoin, surely that's not possible?
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I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?
> Can someone explain? What exactly is the news here? Some company accepts some new form of payment that hardly anyone uses. When it comes to "money", Bitcoin proponents seem massively misinformed on how it actually works. The blockchain technology is interesting, but a new currency isn't as exciting as they want you to believe. I don't care that my dollar has no inherent value, as long as people accept it in exchang…
Well that's a bit short-sighted then.
Plenty of people care about a lot more than that in a currency, namely that is it responsibly and equitably managed. Bitcoin is not this, of course, but it's a giant step in the right direction compared to the Federal Reserve.
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Honestly, why do you care what Valve does with the BTC? If people want to use it, so be it. The backend isn't your concern.
Valve doesn't handle any bit coins.
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Then don't?
Exactly. Most people logically arrive at this conclusion when considering Bitcoin's merit as a currency. And that's before they even learn about the deep security issues, how hard it is to protect, how most Bitcoin services cannot be trusted, etc.
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Exactly. Most people logically arrive at this conclusion when considering Bitcoin's merit as a currency. And that's before they even learn about the deep security issues, how hard it is to protect, how most Bitcoin services cannot be trusted, etc.
Deep security issues? Like what?
"Be your own bank" implies "be your own security division", which very few people are qualified to do.