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Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

blog.bitpay.com

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Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#61

Post by rhino369 »

jMyles wrote: post #57
forgetsusername wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> that's all I care about 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.

No, it's a massive step in the wrong direction compared to the federal reserve. There is reason bitcoins value wildly fluctuates and the US dollars doesn't.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#62

Post by lsadam0 »

pjc50 wrote: post #60
lsadam0 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep security issues? Like what?

Your money is exactly as secure as your private keys, and if they are stolen there is basically no prospect of getting it back. "Be your own bank" implies "be your own security division", which very few people are qualified to do.

If I leave cash on the street should I expect it to be safe? Is that a deep security issue?

You implied there were deep fundamental flaws in BTC security, but your response shows nothing of the sort. Your 'deep flaw' is 'you have to protect your private keys'. You are describing a UX flaw, and I would agree with that. Objectively, you have exposed no 'deep security issues'.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#63

Post by lallysingh »

coldtea wrote: post #48
clemensley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A few of us look at it for uses in other countries, where local currencies are unreliable, and corruption makes it desirable to hold large amounts of your income as "black money."

In areas of high corruption, a networked, global currency could be rather freeing.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#64

Post by arca_vorago »

clemensley wrote: post #24
hypron wrote: post #21

So many bitcoin haters in these comments... we'll see who's wrong in a decade or so.

I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?

I can tell you my personal issues with bitcoin.

1) I'm still bitter I threw all mine away. I had a few hundred in the early days and thought, "this isnt going anywhere"....

2) I'm one of HN's resident conspiracy theorists, for lack of a better term, and bitcoin can be seen as a threat to freedom because for all the awesome things it is, it is not anonymous. This may seem innocuous at first, but if you subscribe to the globalist conspiracy view, one of the primary tenants of "their plan" involves cashless, digital only currecy easily tied to your personhood. In essence, I fear the future will be more totalitarian and dystopian than people realize, and digital currencies like bt seem ripe for abuse and use in such a system.

3) Along the same lines as 2, I feel like once banks start getting into bitcoin heavily, despite its theoretical mechanisms to prevent it, the banks will find a way to corrupt and control the system. The community has already experienced the first attempts in the form of the huge first price inflation.

4) Another problem with bitcoin is that it requires good cybersecurity, which we all know is much more rare than anyone wants to admit. It's ripe for mass thefts. Once that wallet is gone, not much can be done.

Ok, thats most of it, now I have to say that I understand there are many "ifs" in what I am saying, but to me the threats are real. I still will use bitcoin for the time being anyway, and there are many good things about it and other *coins, but you didnt ask what I liked, you asked what I dont like.

On that note, blockchain technology independent of bitcoin I expect to be a huuge hit. Blockchain all the things!

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#65

Post by ssharp »

api wrote: post #39
clemensley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?

Different reasons for different people. There are several camps of BitCoin haters: (1) There are people who think it's a pure speculative bubble or pyramid scheme. (I disagree because it has utility.) (2) There are also people who point out that it's a deflationary currency and therefore broken. (I sympathize a bit with this view but it's not enough to make me dismiss it completely. I think this might be a solvable p…

There is also a camp of people who don't think Bitcoin has much utility when compared to established alternatives, let alone other advances in other crypto/blockchain tech.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#66

Post by Cyph0n »

coldtea wrote: post #48
clemensley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sorry, but you're looking at Bitcoin from a narrow viewpoint. There are in fact people who actually need Bitcoin in their day-to-day.

My home country Tunisia for example has very strict currency controls in place, which means that it is impossible to purchase any goods from outside the country or even transfer money overseas.

The government now provides rechargeable card with a 1000 TND (~500 USD) limit that can be used for online purchases. However, these are only issued to software developers and entrepreneurs to allow them to subscribe to online services, such as hosting, domain names, etc.

Bitcoin provides a quick and easy way to circumvent that: convert your TND to BTC, and use that to purchase online goods or to transfer money outside the country.

I'm actually thinking of setting up a MVP to test out this idea, but I'm struggling to come up with a solution that is completely transparent for the end-user. In other words, I don't want the user to have to understand Bitcoin or buy/sell it manually. I'd prefer instead for the system to use BTC under the hood.

Another example I read about recently is Argentina. People are using Bitcoin there for daily transactions and for their savings due to high fluctuations in the local currency.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#68

Post by rglullis »

joosters wrote: post #51
lsadam0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Conversely, someone in Argentina or Venezuela doesn't deal with any (government-controlled) USD.

Why is that so hard for Americans to understand?

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#69

Post by chii »

StavrosK wrote: post #36
Grue3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I just asked for a refund, because the game was terrible. I asked for the refund to be sent to my wallet, there was an option to get Bitcoin back. I think that, for the wallet, they refund you the game's store price.

this seems like a good way to launder bitcoins. Unless if you got back _the same_ coins you spent - i guess steam holding on to your coins for 2hrs~ isn't that big of a risk, rather than immediately swapping it out for cash.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#70

Post by k33n »

lsadam0 wrote: post #58
joosters wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve doesn't handle any bit coins.

Ok, so? Bitcoin is an accepted payment method. Why should you care how exactly they handle processing of it? The only measure of success here is how much people do or do not use it. Are you honestly trying to argue against their acceptance by nitpicking the details of the backend implementation? 99.9% of people don't care.

It read to me as questioning the value of BTC since neither Bitpay or Valve are interested in holding BTC themselves.
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