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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

#301

Post by snissn »

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".

so anywhere where a check makes sense, in a trusted or doxxed environment for example like IRL

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

#302

Post by rebuilder »

srcreigh wrote: post #241
gambiting wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then please explain what is difficult here. You initiate a purchase with bitcoin, valve instantly grants you access, then few hours later valve checks if the transaction has been confirmed in the blockchain or not. If it hasn't, then the entitlement is removed. What's not simple about it?

What about people who do this 10x a day to play free games forever?

Seems pretty marginal - you’d have to restart, on average, every 10 minutes.

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

#303

Post by StanislavPetrov »

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.

You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of what was happening here. It had nothing to do with money laundering. Steam was accepting transactions before they were confirmed by the bitcoin blockchain. Its like accepting a check and handing over the merchandise before the check clears. It is also why most places don't take checks anymore.

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

#304

Post by StanislavPetrov »

dhosek wrote: post #255

The big thing here is that blockchain is a solution in search of a problem and none of the applications that have been mooted have made sense. I have no doubt that it's going to collapse, but I wouldn't dare to put a date on it. I was pointing out the absurdity of it 10 years ago and it's still sucking people in. Then again, people still get suckered into Ponzi schemes 100 years later so ?

>The big thing here is that blockchain is a solution in search of a problem and none of the applications that have been mooted have made sense.

People and countries who are prevented from accessing the banking system or making money transfers would beg to differ.

>I have no doubt that it's going to collapse, but I wouldn't dare to put a date on it. I was pointing out the absurdity of it 10 years ago and it's still sucking people in.

The same can be said about every fiat currency. Which will collapse first? Or, more importantly, which will collapse faster?

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

#305

Post by weird-eye-issue »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #92
netheril96 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I guess games and cosmetics sell easier than crypto scams.

Bitcoin is so liquid you can cash out millions within seconds. Source: I've done it

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

#306

Post by withinboredom »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #297
withinboredom wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US banks I worked with would just overdraw your account (up to an amount), then, overnight, reorder the transactions so the big ones came first and all the little ones came “after” the account went negative and hit you with hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. I don’t miss the early 2000s.

Don't they reorder transactions even when not overdrafted? I thought my bank did.

That’s because a bank got sued for it, and lost. The banks must now always reorder or keep it in the order it was received. I only bank with the latter ones.

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

#307

Post by rosndo »

m348e912 wrote: post #288
rosndo wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can fairly reliably double spend regardless of replace-by-fee, you just need to coordinate which nodes you broadcast your transactions to.

I'd love it if you can share some evidence if that's as feasible as you think it is. I posted a link above that demonstrates otherwise.

As this video makes clear it is possible to relatively safely accept unconfirmed non-rbf transactions, but that requires you to take extra measures like waiting for a few seconds.

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

#309

Post by kevincox »

doomroot wrote: post #238
kadoban wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on what it is, 3-6 is a _lot_. For something like a Steam game, it seems like waiting for 1 should be more than enough. I say "more than enough" because can't they just revoke the key of whatever was purchased if it gets double-spent? Seems easy enough.

> it seems like waiting for 1 should be more than enough. Not in bitcoin land, orphaned blocks happen a few times a day: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2170/how-often-f... If you're willing to tolerate this risk then by all means go for it. (I'm with you I think steam should be able to tolerate this risk.)

But it is much riskier for the fruadster after 1 transaction. With 0 confirmations it is almost certian that a new transaction with a higher fee will replace the older one. With 1 confirmation you have to either swing a lot of mining power or hope that your block becomes orphaned. The fraud likely doesn't make sense anymore if you lose your money 24/25 times instead of almost never.

Then Steam can accept that lower risk and mitigate further by then revoking game access.

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

#310

Post by sidewndr46 »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #176
sidewndr46 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why? Why would anyone ever accept this?

Because they can revoke your game from your steam account if the transaction doesn't get picked up.

Alright, that is a point I did not consider. This makes me feel that it is difficult to use Bitcoin for expedient transactions, due to the fact that you'd need to put high fees on each transaction.
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