Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#241

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 11:57 PM UTC

aitrean wrote: post #173

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #91

I posted this as an Ask HN, but this might be interesting here. It's sort of off-topic, but in this case there's not much to say about Steam dropping Bitcoin anyway. Maybe it'll hover near the bottom: What should we do about the destabilizing potential of Bitcoin? There are two facts about Bitcoin worth worrying about: 1. There is no upper bound on the price 2. Everyone who thought the price won't continue to exponen…

1. There is an upper bound on price, same as any other asset. The upper bound has yet to be determined, however. 2. Everyone who thought the price wouldn't* continue to exponentially increase was wrong. So far. But this statement totally forgets the fact that shit changes. Anyone who said Yahoo was overvalued before 1999 was proven dead wrong. But after 1999, they were pretty much dead on. Everything else you said ha…

Apparently you haven't been paying attention to the news: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/11/06/japan-made-bitcoin-a-l...

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#242

Post by AgentME » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:01 AM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #48

So one of the things I liked the idea of was micro payments - eg click to donate 5 cents to the author of an article. Are there any crypto currencies that work with negligible fees for micropayments? Is there a framework to use them? Thanks

Pretty much all cryptocurrencies right now follow the same model as Bitcoin, and require similar fees when congestion increases. (See Ethereum's recent fee spike when CryptoKitties took off.) The Bitcoin and Ethereum communities are both seriously exploring and working on solutions like off-chain transactions to solve this issue.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#243

Post by wasx » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:03 AM UTC

Sargos wrote: post #102

openasocket wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a finite number of bitcoins, fewer and fewer bitcoins are being produced over time by design. There can only be 21 million bitcoins, and the majority have already been mined. So the reward just for completing a block (not including the transaction fees) has been steadily decreasing, and that's not even taking into account that more and more miners means it's harder to get that reward. Thus the trend is going…

... so bitcoin is doomed as a real currency as the prices are only going to get higher and people are not going to pay a $5 transaction fee for a $10 product. How is the bitcoin community rationalizing this seemingly inescapable mathematical failure?

Scalability and de facto centralization was always going to be the slow death of Bitcoin,from the size of the blockchain, ASIC miners (which locked out people who couldn't afford to build warehouses of them, creating a centralized market of people who can actually mine coins) and transaction fee. Its too soon now to say that Bitcoin is dying but it certainly will at the current rate, when? Who knows but it's got pretty severe design flaws that I think weren't properly considered in development.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#244

Post by aphextron » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:03 AM UTC

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…

For something like microtransactions, why would you need to use Bitcoin? Can't you just make your own blockchain and track BTC/USD?

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#245

Post by AgentME » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:06 AM UTC

moretai wrote: post #41

heifetz wrote: post #35

why are transaction costs so high? I thought one of the selling points was that the transaction cost is negligible because miners main incentive comes from mining new bitcoins?

Doesn't it become exponentially more expensive to mine bitcoins? The more bitcoins there are, the more resources it costs to mine new ones?

No. The amount of miners isn't tied to how many bitcoins exist, or how many transactions are happening.

Maybe you're thinking of how when more people are mining, it becomes harder to mine. This is because there is a global fixed rate of Bitcoin creation. Every 10 minutes, 12.5 new bitcoins come into existence. Miners are effectively competing for the chance to be the one to receive those new bitcoins. If mining becomes unprofitable, then some miners will drop out, causing it to become more profitable for those remaining. Miners don't set prices or rules; price affects profitability which either causes more miners to mine or some to drop out.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#246

Post by jsmthrowaway » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:09 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #43

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…

> I think this is what will ultimately bring Bitcoin down People have been saying that for years. It serves purposes other than buying and selling goods, and in fact almost no one uses it to buy things.

That’s an entirely different narrative about Bitcoin, though, then what was presented to us when it was seeking adoption. The messaging was literally: use this to buy things. Maybe we all got it wrong, but a lot of people did, then; we must never forget the infamous Bitcoin pizzas.

https://twitter.com/bitcoin_pizza

I’ve noticed this trend lately of rewriting what Bitcoin is for because I assure you, it was presented as the new cash for a long, long time. We were supposed to see Bitcoin ATMs and paying for daily sundries with Bitcoin. Then that became difficult, we are starting to see the brave adopters drop out of using it that way, and suddenly it’s an investment vehicle and store of value and nobody really buys anything with it and that’s been the intent all along.

People were saying those things for years because Bitcoin proponents were telling us. It’s not like people arrived at that conclusion erroneously.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#247

Post by eterm » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:10 AM UTC

AgentME wrote: post #240

eterm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>Or a second transaction layer, like a bank or VISA? * They don't transact bitcoin. * They don't transact your (non)bitcoin in a decentralized way. They alone run the software and are in control of changes and restrictions, including who you're allowed to send to. * You don't hold the private keys to your (non)bitcoin when it's a bank or VISA or Paypal. They own it for you. They can lock your account and maybe give y…

Second layers over bitcoin won't have those properties you've mentioned either.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#248

Post by Domenic_S » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:11 AM UTC

nicky0 wrote: post #95

Domenic_S wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly much, much longer, but it could be returned in 14 days if it's too low and never makes it out of the mempool. That's where traditional electronic payments have a huge edge -- instant, incredibly cheap guaranteed verification.

Bitcoin transaction are never "returned" - they are simply either confirmed or not yet confirmed.

the mempool ignores transactions older than 2 weeks: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/5f0e27f1a8495d9be4...

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#249

Post by AgentME » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:11 AM UTC

openasocket wrote: post #58

heifetz wrote: post #35

why are transaction costs so high? I thought one of the selling points was that the transaction cost is negligible because miners main incentive comes from mining new bitcoins?

There's a finite number of bitcoins, fewer and fewer bitcoins are being produced over time by design. There can only be 21 million bitcoins, and the majority have already been mined. So the reward just for completing a block (not including the transaction fees) has been steadily decreasing, and that's not even taking into account that more and more miners means it's harder to get that reward. Thus the trend is going…

No, transaction volume and congestion is the thing that drives transaction fees up.

If transaction volume (and fees) stayed constant, then as the minting rate goes down, there will be a lower reward for blocks, and some miners will drop out of mining because it's not profitable for them. Miners dropping out will lower the mining difficulty, so the remaining miners will get a bigger cut. The system finds an equilibrium. Mining profitability only affects the mining difficulty and miners themselves (and the amount of resources necessary for a 51% attack, but as long as that remains obscenely high then the specifics don't really matter in this discussion).

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#250

Post by bluetwo » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 12:15 AM UTC

gulperxcx wrote: post #205

divbyzer0 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original idea was that one would exchange local currency for BTC only when needed, then transfer. The person receiving the BTC would then immediately exchange into their local currency. The result would be that either party would hold BTC for such a short period of time, BTC fluctuations would be negligible. It should be a medium of exchange, but for now its a speculative gamble.

What's the benefit of this over doing a direct exchange. ie. Local currency foreign currency?

Only think I can think of is that it is hard to trace, which is important if you are trying to get cash out of China or Russia (or probably other places).

Technically this use is still likely to be illegal.