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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

#131

Post by jayd16 »

ike0790 wrote: post #97

bitcoin should be seen in the mainstream as a universal payment network. I believe its best use case for the average(non-cypherpunk libertarian) person/company is to accept it by using a service that automatic exchanges it for dollars on their end. For example, someone in africa could pay .001 BTC($40 currently) for a game and all steam would see on their end is a debit transaction for $40(cash not bitcoin) in their…

You're forgetting the tax implications here. Steam is still on the hook for sales(and other) taxes. The problem was never just picking an exchange currency. It was the legal hurdles that made this complicated. Those hurdles are still there. They apply to everyone but especially in Valve's case as they are not under the radar.

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

#132

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ike0790 wrote: post #97

bitcoin should be seen in the mainstream as a universal payment network. I believe its best use case for the average(non-cypherpunk libertarian) person/company is to accept it by using a service that automatic exchanges it for dollars on their end. For example, someone in africa could pay .001 BTC($40 currently) for a game and all steam would see on their end is a debit transaction for $40(cash not bitcoin) in their…

> For example, someone in africa could pay .001 BTC($40 currently) for a game and all steam would see on their end is a debit transaction for $40(cash not bitcoin) in their account.

Transaction fees and exchange fees will diminish that received value and force the customer to pay a fee to pay for something.

The net cost of Bitcoin transaction fees and exchange fees is higher than just using a random, common credit card processing company. It’s also slower for users.

Let’s be real: Gamers don’t really want to pay extra transaction fees for the privilege of sending Bitcoin and waiting as much as an hour or more for the transaction (my latest Bitcoin payment took longer than an hour) before they can play their game. Not when they can type in a credit number and get it done right away for 0 fees (or negative fees with reward cards)

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

#133

Post by devoutsalsa »

andai wrote: post #124
Beltalowda wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam marked me as a "fraud" because I used my European Revolut card to try and make a purchase when I lived in Indonesia. I get that they don't want European people to pay Indonesian prices through a VPN or whatnot, but I was living in Indonesia and living off a local salary; I thought marking me as a "fraud" was rather harsh; with the increased ease of international banking there are loads of cases where this is pe…

I'm on vacation in Croatia and my Spotify Premium expired. I tried to renew it with my Dutch card and was rejected, so I had to use a VPN set to Amsterdam...

I’m visiting Macedonia. I changed the email address on my Capital One account (migrating off Gmail) and they froze all 4 of my cards. To unfreeze them, I had to provide my drivers license, social security card, and proof of residence in the USA & then wait two weeks. There was no process for accelerating the timetable.

#expatlife

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

#134

Post by deutschewelle »

woah wrote: post #28

Completely incoherent article. What does “fraudulent” even mean? Fraudulent credit card transactions for gift cards are common, because the gift card provides a way to cash out a stolen credit card number. But if a criminal has access to someone else’s Bitcoin, it’s already “cashed out”.

I feel like your comment is unjustified and incoherent. It is obvious to many of us what "fraudulent" mean here, it could be an array of:

- previously flagged wallets moving through mixers

- purchases and refunds to facilitate money laundering

- converting to and from steam wallet to crypto etc.

It is NOT at all ambiguous which is what you are insinuating as the basis for not reading past the headline and discouraging others from doing so.

Bitcoin is a public ledger where all transactions are PERMANENTLY recorded. The law enforcement agencies have much better deobfuscation tools than 10 years ago and the tools will just continue to improve as they have INFINITE resources.

> But if a criminal has access to someone else’s Bitcoin, it’s already “cashed out”.

You are describing one type of crime that has existed far long before crypto as basis to discredit Gabe's claims and its an unconvincing argument/poorly baked logic that they tell in maximalist echo chambers.

Rather I ask, what is it that you fear so much whenever criticisms are raised? Did you transfer your savings to purchase jpegs and other insane APY that seasoned hedge fund managers can't produce?

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

#135

Post by bena »

skybrian wrote: post #83
trillic wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is colloquially known as "money laundering". It's one of Bitcoin's most promising use-cases!

I know, I’m asking how feasible it is with Steam.

The game and item are real. Hell, they may be legit games. The transactions are real. Everything is real.

But the source of the money used to buy the games is illegitimate.

Let's say, I stole $100,000. Now, I can't use this money until I find a way to explain how I have it.

If I wanted to wash it with Steam, I could go to the store, buy Steam cards or gift cards with the cash. Set up several Steam accounts, then use those cards to buy my game.

Now I'll lose some money to taxes, Steam's cut, and paying people to buy cards and games, but now I have $50,000 dollars I can use and no one is going to question where I got it.

You may be wondering why I can use the money to buy gift cards but not just deposit it in my bank, but no one is asking why someone has $100. That money is not traceable to anyone.

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

#136

Post by PragmaticPulp »

abi wrote: post #80
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?

Say you're a Ukrainian fleeing refuge and you want store your life's savings somewhere safe. Pretty damn useful there. If you don't want to deal with the price fluctuations of BTC or ETH, buy stablecoins instead.

> Say you're a Ukrainian fleeing refuge and you want store your life's savings somewhere safe.

Doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone wire your bank account money to a crypto exchange, convert it to crypto, transfer the crypto to a different bank in another country, then withdraw it when they could just wire the money directly to the other country’s bank?

If you can’t wire money out of your bank account to somewhere else, you probably can’t exchange it for crypto either.

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

#137

Post by giaour »

SilasX wrote: post #46
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=...

Sorry, I went to the article and it wasn't any more specific on what a fraudulent transaction means in this context, and I don't know what that would mean here (for the context of a purchase via Bitcoin on a user's Steam account). All I can imagine is a case where the user claims they didn't make the purchase, "please refund", but that would be easy to disprove.

I assumed they meant spending stolen bitcoin on steam. It's common to call purchases made with a stolen credit card "fraudulent," even if there's nothing untoward about the purchase itself other than the payment instrument.

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

#138

Post by gruez »

jayd16 wrote: post #120
scotty79 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would steam know what was used to pay for bitcoin they received?

Conceivably, the public ledger aspect of the technology.

I doubt steam is doing blockchain analysis, tracing back where the coins came from, and seeing whether the exchange that sold them the coins were defrauded or not.

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

#139

Post by mdoms »

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.

> if the Bitcoin is stolen that's not the merchant's problem

It is if half the transactions at the merchant eventually get refunded.

> The whole point of Bitcoin is to eliminate the possibility of chargeback

I'm sorry I'm having trouble keeping up with the "the point" of Bitcoin is this week. So it's chargeback avoidance now?

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

#140

Post by DangitBobby »

This article I think contains the original interview with Gabe. It at least mentions the nature of the fraud [1]. He actually says "the vast majority" which sounds like more than 50% to me.

> Another thing was that the vast majority of those transactions, for whatever reason, were fraudulent, where people were repudiating transactions or using illegal sources of funds and things like that. And that's just out of control, right? You want that number, realistically, in a couple of percent, not half of all transactions turning out to be fraudulent transactions. Similarly, with the actors that are currently in this NFT space, they're just not people you really are wanting to be doing business with. That doesn't say anything about the underlying technology, it's just a reflection of the people right now who are viewing it as an opportunity to rip customers off, or engage in money laundering, or other things like that.

1. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/gabe-newell-interview-steam...

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