Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#171

Post by hartpuff » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

aedron wrote: post #125

flatline wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...)

> It doesn't matter. I can pay with bitcoin on Steam.

I can pay with Dogecoin with one additional step.

>It makes bitcoin more fungible and thus viable as a currency.

Isn't using Bitpay just a way of exchanging bitcoin for dollars, while kidding yourself that's not what you're doing?

> 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.

All that's left is to wait countless tedious hours for the funds to appear in the, for example, Namesilo account. It is easy (so is using a credit card), but it's almost uselessly slow (unlike credit cards).

Edit: maybe this explains anti-Bitcoin sentiment. The fundamentalists can't handle any factual comments that aren't entirely about how game changing it is.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#172

Post by deepnet » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

stegosaurus wrote: post #157

jerf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'd suggest you do sometimes see people saying that about Linux, especially when Linux "on the desktop" comes up. And the reason is that neither project is simply a neutral software development project, but are politically charged. Linux at this point really just has a political "tinge" to it with the free software stuff, but Bitcoin is drenched in politics. So people are responding with their political bra…

I think you're spot on with this. The general quality of discourse on any thread seems to drop hugely whenever politics comes up. We seem to be able to leave each other alone when it comes to using vi vs. emacs - the odd joke comes up, but that's about it. But politics? There seems to be this attitude of conversion, missionaries, convincing, it's kind of frustrating. I think it's healthy to question one's views somet…

Experimentally it can be informative to refresh one's controversial comments as this can show the total may have received many more up and down votes than the final total suggests.

My inner statistician would be interested to see up & down totals as a metric of controversy.

FUD merchants, social media management, astroturf, superpacs, brigades, vendettas are common enough on Reddit and the Post-Snowden zeitgeist demands we consider Orwell's '84 where the mere possibilty of being observed is enough to bring general opinion & behaviour to heel.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#173

Post by ifdefdebug » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:40 PM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #166

ifdefdebug wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin provides a quick and easy way to circumvent that Is that reality as of today, or is that a hope for the future?

No, but the potential is there, and it's already been done in other countries such as South Africa. The biggest hurdle I think is that Bitcoin is essentially unknown in Tunisia. I'm actually planning on building something but I don't have the entire system fleshed out.

I wish you good luck for your project sincerely. And for your country.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#174

Post by VMG » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

flatline wrote: post #92

VMG wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, in that sense it's less 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.

Miners can elect to not include certain transactions. I'm not aware of any evidence that this is happening now except with low/no-fee transactions, but the centralization of hash power makes it possible and, I would contend, inevitable, given sufficient time and adoption. We already see this with the banking institutions that grow like barnacles on the side of the blockchain - they track where their customers spend c…

Sure, there certainly is a risk of centralization in Bitcoin. At the moment Chinese miners probably are in a position to collude and censor transactions they don't like. However they can't steal assets, so they have a limited incentive to do so. Users only need to find one miner that includes a transaction in order to make a payment, albeit a slow one.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#175

Post by apo » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

stegosaurus wrote: post #141

I find the vitriol towards Bitcoin kind of odd. If I posted an article about Linux 4.1 or something, I wouldn't expect to see comments saying 'meanwhile, I used Windows yesterday, and played GTA5, and it was good'. What gives? Are there forums in which people have this sort of reaction to, I dunno, HTML5? From some of the posts here you would think that it's IED control software.

I've run into the sentiment you're talking about both online and IRL. It puzzles me as well.

Three factors come to mind:

1. There's a deep-rooted idea today that money comes from the government and that everything else is a scam. Bitcoin challenges that idea.

2. Bitcoin refuses to die despite the predictions of just about everyone who first learns about it.

3. The technical underpinnings of Bitcoin are counterintuitive to say the least. That makes Bitcoin hard to understand even for the technically-oriented.

The combination of longevity, casual disregard for convention, and counterintuitive nature gets annoying after awhile.

Nor are these factors restricted to those who can't stand Bitcoin, its users, or the idea of private money. Many of the most vocal Bitcoin advocates today went through a period of disbelief or outright hostility toward the idea.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#176

Post by jandrese » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:45 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #69

StavrosK wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like there are easier ways to launder bitcoins. Tumblers are still around I think.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#177

Post by VMG » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

johndevor wrote: post #146

In other news: https://i.imgur.com/3ncet7I.jpg

This is amazing.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#178

Post by rglullis » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

aliakhtar wrote: post #78

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?

Please stop using us non americans as your justification for bitcoin. I live in Pakistan, and happily and easily use a visa debit card for buying steam games.

Somehow it seems you are offended. Why?

You may even use Visa, still doesn't mean that you are dealing with US dollars. Why do you think is it completely normal to have Visa as being a global country dealing with the cross-country transactions, but not Bitpay?

If you have access to the international banking system, great. It is not a bad thing. Just like it is not a bad thing to have bitcoin as an alternative.

The one thing that I don't get, anytime that Bitcoin comes here, is that people seem to think that it is an either/or proposition. That for Bitcoin to be usable it needs to completely replace the Almighty US Dollar or any other sovereign currency.

Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain are just tools that are being explored and developed as a way to bring trust to transactions and accounting without a central authority. What is bad about that?

We don't need to have Central Banks. "Us non-Americans" don't need to use American Institutions to participate in a global economy.

This idea of "I can pay with Visa, therefore Bitcoin is useless" is short-sighted.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#179

Post by BinaryResult » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #127

arca_vorago wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Although I haven't personally read it, everything Andreas Antonopoulos does is great and this seems to have received very favorable feedback from the bitcoin community. http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking-Digital-Cr...

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#180

Post by BinaryResult » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #127

arca_vorago wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Although I haven't personally read it, everything Andreas Antonopoulos does is great and this seems to have received very favorable feedback from the bitcoin community. http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking-Digital-Cr...