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'50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

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Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#151

Post by hungryforcodes »

Tenoke wrote: post #62
mmaunder wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“did someone try to send something other then bitcoin to a ₿ address?” Like what? Cottage cheese? Transaction failures and and fees are not fraud. The quote is specific. Regarding lightning: https://twitter.com/nikzh/status/1356335970300416001?s=20&t=...

>“did someone try to send something other then bitcoin to a ₿ address?” Like what? Cottage cheese? Most commonly btc via lightning network to a place that doesn't support it or bch. It happens all the time.

There was no lighting network in 2016

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#152

Post by bena »

temp8964 wrote: post #19
hashimotonomora wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Walmart compare to that regarding purchases with ill-gotten cash?

Because cash can't be easily identified as stolen, so the problem does not exist. Just like the electricity cost of bank transaction cannot be easily quantified, so the problem does not exist. Those problems only exist in Bitcoin. /s

No one says that the electricity cost of a bank transaction can't be quantified. They say it's far cheaper than bitcoin.

Because it is.

Bitcoin by its very nature wants to expand to consume every possible unit of energy it can.

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#153

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

IgorPartola wrote: post #15

At this point is BTC a good idea? Does it actually provide any damn value at all at a macro level?

Well, my friend in Russia just yesterday donated $10,000 in Bitcoin to Ukrainian defense fund. Had he done that using paypal, he'd already be in Gulag being raped with a broken bottle.

Now he wants to leave Russia, but Russia is being banned from the SWIFT network, so he can't get any of his savings out. Enter Bitcoin again.

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#154

Post by giaour »

devit wrote: post #105

How can a Bitcoin transaction be fraudulent? They are irreversible and if the Bitcoin is stolen that's not the merchant's problem. The whole point of Bitcoin is to eliminate the possibility of chargebacks and thus the need for merchant to care about whether the buyer is in good faith and whether the money is stolen.

> They are irreversible and if the Bitcoin is stolen that's not the merchant's problem.

This seems consistent with the bitcoin ethos but incompatible how the economy and legal system work. If someone buys a physical item from your physical store with a hot check, a stolen credit card, or marked bills that were just stolen from a bank, you don't get to keep the money, even if police aren't able to recover the item you sold. This is normally referred to as being defrauded.

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#155

Post by marcus_cemes »

doomroot wrote: post #143

Context on what I believe they mean by "fraudulent". Steam back in the day used to accept 0 confirmation bitcoin spends. This means that the transaction has been gossiped on the bitcoin p2p network but had not yet been mined into a block and thus had minimal finality guarantees. Steam could see that they were going to receive a bitcoin payment (when the transaction was mined into a block) and would credit the users a…

> There are many context where a 0conf tx makes sense, mostly IRL.

I'm curious, like what? To me this is more like "someone wrote a cheque but there's no guarantee that they'll give it to you".

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#156

Post by lokar »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #146
lokar wrote: post #82

There seems to be a basic misunderstanding on the part of the pro-btc ppl here all saying "how is that fraud?" or "how is that steams problem?" If you run a business that can be used in a money laundering scheme, even if you are not a victim, you have a legal responsibility to try to limit/prevent that actually. The crypto crowd may not like that, but it's not up to them.

There is absolutely no definition of fraud that I read in the article.

I was referring the the comment threads here

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#157

Post by rglullis »

TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #144
rglullis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does it cost to run a node? Strictu sensu, it is "decentralized". In practice, it has all the disadvantages of blockchains and none of the advantages of the traditional banking networks.

it's profitable.

Owning a bank also is. Your point?

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#158

Post by aasasd »

doomroot wrote: post #143

Context on what I believe they mean by "fraudulent". Steam back in the day used to accept 0 confirmation bitcoin spends. This means that the transaction has been gossiped on the bitcoin p2p network but had not yet been mined into a block and thus had minimal finality guarantees. Steam could see that they were going to receive a bitcoin payment (when the transaction was mined into a block) and would credit the users a…

> and you don't trust you customers

Seeing as “remember the password” does about nothing in the desktop app on my own machine near which only I ever come—Steam's attitude toward the users is crystal clear, and I'd say it's weird that they lived almost two years with that arrangement.

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#159

Post by mbesto »

netheril96 wrote: post #76
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy TF2 keys and trade them to another account? Or CSGO skins? It's incredibly liquid and there are third party marketplaces for cashing out

They are not more liquid than BTC itself. Why not just sell the BTC directly?

Speculative theory -

- You steal a credit card.

- Buy BTC with said credit card.

- Use BTC to buy Steam cosmetics that you already own and Steam converts that BTC to USD.

You now have effectively used a stolen credit card to convert its value to cold hard cash that is not traceable, or at least requires several hoops to jump through to figure out who stole the card.

Re: '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments

#160

Post by qvrjuec »

marcus_cemes wrote: post #155
doomroot wrote: post #143

Context on what I believe they mean by "fraudulent". Steam back in the day used to accept 0 confirmation bitcoin spends. This means that the transaction has been gossiped on the bitcoin p2p network but had not yet been mined into a block and thus had minimal finality guarantees. Steam could see that they were going to receive a bitcoin payment (when the transaction was mined into a block) and would credit the users a…

> There are many context where a 0conf tx makes sense, mostly IRL. I'm curious, like what? To me this is more like "someone wrote a cheque but there's no guarantee that they'll give it to you".

I think more like "someone wrote a check and there's no guarantee it won't bounce". So really, it's quite analogous to how 0conf works in practice.
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