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Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

blog.bitpay.com

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Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#121

Post by goldbrick »

lsadam0 wrote: post #62
pjc50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

No, it's deeply flawed. Witness all the exchanges that absconded with their users' funds.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#122

Post by sievebrain »

mbmott wrote: post #100
transfire wrote: post #89

I thought Bitcoin had run into a fundamental problem that transactions were now taking hours co complete. And that an internal battle among developers on the fix remained unresolved. Did I miss something?

The Bitcoin network works perfectly fine and always has. The issue you are referring to was during a DOS attack on the network, which still wasn't an issue if you paid slightly higher fees to prioritize your transaction. The developer split on the blocksize increase was pretty heated for a while, but has largely blown over due to Bitcoin still working and the sky refusing to fall as some predicted. However, scaling i…

If Bitcoin users were naturally making more and more payments or there were more and more users, and then it ran up against the block size limit, how would you know whether there was a DOS attack or not? Wouldn't it look like a permanent DOS attack?

Did it blow over because the block size limit was increased?

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#123

Post by germanier »

Cyph0n wrote: post #102
Flimm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you convert TND to BTC?

I take your TND, and then I give you BTC which I've purchased. I will also buy your BTC, but I'll likely rely on BTC purchased from foreign exchanges. You then use that BTC for whatever. The problem is that it becomes difficult to bring in casual customers due to the overhead introduced by Bitcoin, as Bitcoin is virtually unknown in Tunisia. A common issue in Tunisia especially is sending money to relatives in France…

> I take your TND, and then I give you BTC which I've purchased.

In that case you end up holding TND and need to purchase the bitcoin to give to your customers in another currency. You would have an easier result if you just directly exchanged TND to EUR without putting BTC in between. Likely that's about as legal as your solution. Just because at some point the value is hold in BTC doesn't mean currency controls cease to exist.

I don't see the value Bitcoin provides here at all except for the fact that the government agency that should enforce currency controls is likely not competent enough yet to spot what you are doing. I'd place a bet that as soon as you start advertising your transparent TND-EUR conversion scheme that they'll shut you down as fast as if you wouldn't use BTC.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#124

Post by mbmott »

vesinisa wrote: post #112
mbmott wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $100 cellphone isn't a decentralized peer to peer network. You are comparing apples to nose-hairs. Bitcoin will scale in the same way the internet scaled... slowly and then suddenly.

For me the largest put off with Bitcoin is the community. They seem to be very intolerant of criticism, to the appearance of a cult or ideology.[1] The problem lies in that unlike most open source projects, a sizeable portion of the community stands to make huge profits, giving rise to a permanent conflict of interest. Time and time again, the financial interest of the early adopters continue to stifle actual develop…

This is a valid point, but there are far sharper criticisms out there than Mike Hearn's. I find that following the code and not the community is the way to go in Bitcoin-land.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#125

Post by aedron »

flatline wrote: post #113
StavrosK wrote: post #12

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.

They don't accept bitcoin directly, they instead accept fiat from Bitpay on behalf of people who wish to pay in bitcoin. It is an important distinction. On the one hand this makes a lot of sense for Steam, it reduces the up-front overhead and risk of accepting digital currencies and I would imagine it offloads the onus of AML/KYC compliance to Bitpay. On the other hand it is hardly a ringing endorsement of bitcoin it…

It doesn't matter. I can pay with bitcoin on Steam. It makes bitcoin more fungible and thus viable as a currency.

And for what it's worth, I find the bitcoin payment process immensely superior to credit cards: Just pull out the phone and scan the QR code on the screen. Screen updates to show payment was made. Love it. (Now, acquiring the bitcoins in the first place though...)

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#126

Post by rglullis »

Fargren wrote: post #104
rglullis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, someone in Argentina or Venezuela doesn't deal with any (government-controlled) USD. Why is that so hard for Americans to understand?

You can buy as many dollars as you want in Argentina since December.

Yeah, I know.

The point still stands. The point is that by accepting bitcoin, even if through a broker, Steam (an American company) now can reach a good number of people who are have nothing to do with the American Financial system.

The US may be the center of the world, but it is not the whole world. Bitcoin (or any thing that can be fungible and free of control by one central institution) can be used by anyone outside of this.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#127

Post by CaptainZapp »

arca_vorago wrote: post #64
clemensley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Can you recommend a good introductory book into the blockchain?

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#128

Post by mbmott »

Fogest wrote: post #109
mbmott wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the case. The bitcoin you paid in and the bitcoin refunded to you are tied directly to your real identity, so I'm not sure what value "laundering" would have. There are no dirty bitcoins--see the U.S. Gov sale of the Silk Road coins as proof of this. Bitcoin does have mixing services that would "launder" or obfuscate the link between bitcoin and your real identity, which does provide value for some users.

But you don't have to have valid data on your steam account?

As far as I know you can't make a purchase without having valid payment data. There might be a work around, but probably not via Bitcoin payments. Bitpay is definitely subject to KYC / AML compliance.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#129

Post by Cyph0n »

WJW wrote: post #118
Flimm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you convert TND to BTC?

I can't reply to Cyphons coment for some reason, but there seems to be a problem with setting up the trade he describes. If it's succesful, he will then be stuck with a large amount of TND, which he has no use for and, due to the currency controls, can't convert to a currency that is useful for him. That is leaving out the point that both the operators and the clients are willfully circumventing the law, which most g…

Actually I'm a Tunisian, so the TND will be useful in the long run as an investment. But that still prevents me from reinvesting it into the business i.e. buying more BTC.

One way is to simply buy BTC from local sellers who perhaps bring BTC from outside the country. They take a cut and I add a markup before selling it back.

But there's another advantage I have. I'm currently residing outside the country, and if I do setup the business it will be funded using outside money. Because the company is funded externally, I can actually transfer any revenue it generates outside of the country.

As for your last point, that is in fact my biggest concern. The government could easily close down the company and its bank accounts at its pleasure. To avoid this, I think the safest option is to go with a purely decentralized market that simply connects buyers with sellers, but that will make it much harder to take a cut.

Anyways, I'm still thinking about the whole thing, and as you noted, it's not that straightforward.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#130

Post by clemensley »

overcast wrote: post #67
hypron wrote: post #21

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

Is this like the Linux on desktop prophecy?

Maybe this isn't a bad analogy. I'm sure you are aware that Linux is the most used consumer facing OS today (android). So sometimes these prophecies do come true, just almost never in the way you think in advance.
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