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Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

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Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#151

Post by pera »

janoc wrote: post #30
vxNsr wrote: post #3

It's for the same reason that no one wanted to touch zimbabwe dollar back in 2007, if the value of the medium of exchange differs from breakfast to lunch it's not really a good medium of exchange. Doesn't matter if value is appreciating or depreciating, currency needs to have a reasonably stable value to be useful.

The volatility alone wouldn't be a huge problem if the transactions were quick, apart from having to constantly re-price the goods (not a big deal with an automated system selling digital downloads, even though it is a real PITA for the accounting afterwards!). However, getting the transaction confirmed can take many hours at the times of high demand and then it still fails because thanks to the volatility, the trans…

Does Valve really needs more than 0 confirmations? double-spending doesn't seems like a big issue for them since Steam is DRM and they have some level of control over the software people have in their libraries (and total control in the case of online games). If the concern is whether some people would just download games, double-spend before getting one confirmation and then keep Steam offline forever (or copy the game files from the steam folder), I think people can already do something similar as they let users "return" games during the firsts 24 hours after the purchase.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#152

Post by Klathmon »

ceejayoz wrote: post #126
Klathmon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying they are acceptable, i'm saying that $20 fees per average transaction isn't true in all cases except once in the history of bitcoin.

Is there reason to believe that sort of congestion won't reoccur?

There is zero reason to believe that, and I'd even go so far as to say it WILL happen again, and probably soon.

There are solutions being worked on, but they are not ready for primetime yet.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#153

Post by ajross »

rebuilder wrote: post #142
ajross wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks are an order of magnitude more liquid than Bitcoin, though

That would depend entirely on the stock. I'm sure there are many, many companies whose stock trades at less daily volume than BTC. Actually, I'd think few companies' stock trades at BTC's volume.

Oh sure, Berkshire Hathaway is less liquid. There are lots of stocks designed via various tricks (usually just share price) to be held and not traded.

Nonetheless, for any of the "commonly traded and indexed investment securities we all talk about colloquially as 'stocks'", the daily trade to capitalization ratio is routinely an order of magnitude higher than bitcoin.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#154

Post by babuskov »

eterm wrote: post #96
dmm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a recent transaction with a $2 fee: https://blockchain.info/tx/704b0c6c19c8cfe1d16093552d5196a8f... For that $2 a transaction is forever recorded on thousands of nodes in a worldwide consensus network, secured by a huge number of miners. Blockchains are not going to scale to visa level numbers of transactions without huge blocks and de facto centralization. The reasonable alternative is a second transaction la…

Or a second transaction layer, like a bank or VISA? At which point, why not use those same layers over USD instead of over bitcoin?

Because moving USD across borders usually includes declaring the source and type of income and taxing it. Bitcoin looks like a big tax-evasion scheme at this moment because 1) laws aren't clearly defined and 2) governments are unable to track what is going on unless BTC is converted to/from fiat.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#155

Post by greenhouse_gas »

m3kw9 wrote: post #90
janoc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The volatility alone wouldn't be a huge problem if the transactions were quick, apart from having to constantly re-price the goods (not a big deal with an automated system selling digital downloads, even though it is a real PITA for the accounting afterwards!). However, getting the transaction confirmed can take many hours at the times of high demand and then it still fails because thanks to the volatility, the trans…

If you treat it like gold(store of value) then having a service that makes it liquid is just a bonus. Is like expecting to be able to purchase something using stock.

A store of value is something which you can be sort-of sure that people will want it in X years (with the longer the X, the better).

Gold has been valued since, I don't know, before the Greeks. What are the chances that tomorrow gold will go completely out of style (say gold will be worth no more than copper)? What about BitCoin? Can you put money in BC and hide it away?

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#156

Post by sliverstorm »

jordigh wrote: post #146
sliverstorm wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've mostly had this for years, in the form of PayPal. Your ID even is your email. The issues with PayPal have mostly been interfacing with fiat currency, which any system will have to deal with, and transaction fees, which any system will have. The real problem IMO is the lack of a de-facto service that everyone all around the world has, and we're kind of in this position: https://xkcd.com/927/

Paypal doesn't work well across international boundaries. It's not convenient for IRC tipping. It's not internet money. And it's not my money, it's their money which they usually will give to me at their pleasure. Having family and friends in different countries who use different currencies, let me tell you, Paypal is not the solution I want.

I avoid using PayPal internationally because they make it hard for me to pay in foreign currency denominations (they "helpfully" insist on being my exchange) but I have used it, it was no "worse" really than paying domestically. What makes them bad for you for international?

I argue it's not convenient for IRC tipping simply because 1) software is not well-integrated for minimal clicks 2) the other person might not have PayPal.

Don't get me wrong, I don't love PayPal, but I don't think Bitcoin brings anything really fundamentally important & new to the table, except maybe the decentralized part. Though, I suppose you could argue the decentralized nature of email was key for its universal adoption today.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#157

Post by shepardrtc »

phaser wrote: post #118

I'm here to say the problems in selling games for Bitcoin are not the same for microtransactions. I'm the original developer of Bitquest[1], where we used to process hundreds of micropayments smaller than 1 cent each day using 0 fee Bitcoin transactions. When the blocks started to fill up we had to move all transactions off-chain except when players send money to the game and cashing out. From the player's perspectiv…

Have you thought about trying Ripple?

https://ripple.com/build/transaction-cost/

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#158

Post by thinkloop »

pera wrote: post #151
janoc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The volatility alone wouldn't be a huge problem if the transactions were quick, apart from having to constantly re-price the goods (not a big deal with an automated system selling digital downloads, even though it is a real PITA for the accounting afterwards!). However, getting the transaction confirmed can take many hours at the times of high demand and then it still fails because thanks to the volatility, the trans…

Does Valve really needs more than 0 confirmations? double-spending doesn't seems like a big issue for them since Steam is DRM and they have some level of control over the software people have in their libraries (and total control in the case of online games). If the concern is whether some people would just download games, double-spend before getting one confirmation and then keep Steam offline forever (or copy the g…

The problem with zero conf now is that the transaction may never get through. Blocks are full so often that if the fee isn't high enough the tx might stay stuck in the mempool for weeks until the machine is rebooted and the tx is lost forever.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#159

Post by swlkr »

shepardrtc wrote: post #157
phaser wrote: post #118

I'm here to say the problems in selling games for Bitcoin are not the same for microtransactions. I'm the original developer of Bitquest[1], where we used to process hundreds of micropayments smaller than 1 cent each day using 0 fee Bitcoin transactions. When the blocks started to fill up we had to move all transactions off-chain except when players send money to the game and cashing out. From the player's perspectiv…

Have you thought about trying Ripple? https://ripple.com/build/transaction-cost/

Could also try IOTA (https://iota.org), even though it's early days

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#160

Post by Klathmon »

blibble wrote: post #124
Klathmon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>cardholders are not liable for unauthorised transactions by merchants Assuming they are really fraud and aren't just a "free trial" expiring, aren't a contractually-agreed upon price increase hidden in fine print, or that the cardholder saw the fraud and reported it within 60 days. Not to mention now the cardholder is now unable to use the card if fraud is found, and needs to wait for a new one to be sent via mail.…

in most civilised countries small print like that would treated as sharp practice and you'd easily be able to force a refund under consumer protection law in the UK I can walk into my bank branch and have my card replaced on the spot, so I don't really see that as a problem, unless you're abroad (and if you're abroad with only one card you should probably know better)

We have 2 different definitions of "easily". At the very least I need to identify that the charge happened or happened differently (if small, it could take a while). Then I need to make sure that it wasn't a real transaction (both me and my wife use the same cardnumber, so I need to check with her to make sure that "0239-ONLN-PMT-GR" wasn't from something she bought).

Then I can call the bank, tell them I didn't make that transaction, or I didn't agree to it, and if i'm lucky they will refund it right away, then investigate. I then need to follow up on that investigation because if they find for some reason it's not "fraud", then they will recharge me that at a later date, so I need to keep up on it until resolved.

And no matter how easy it is to get a card replaced, it's work that I shouldn't need to do.

I'm not saying that Visa is "broken", or that Bitcoin is the only way forward. But I am saying that I think Bitcoin's core values are better than the current system. And that one day Bitcoin will be easier, more secure, more private, and just as usable as Visa.

Hopefully one day we will look back on the way current payment processes are run and it will seem as terrifying and stupid as if you were required to leave a copy of your car keys at every single parking lot you parked in.

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