Does Valve cash out the bitcoins immediately because of it's volatile nature, or is Valve large enough (or bitcoin purchases small enough) that they can safely bear the changes?
Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
321–330 of 447 posts
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#322In other news, I live in Pakistan, and I used a debit card to buy a steam game 3 days ago and it worked instantly + frictionlessly, without having to worry about confirmation times + exchange rates + getting scammed + getting on a government list.
> without having to worry about confirmation times Card payments take far longer to process than bitcoin payments > exchange rates Just as much as with bitcoin. > getting scammed Why?
> Card payments take far longer to process than bitcoin payments
I can't remember the last time I stood in line at the supermarket for an hour because VISA was clogged with "dust" transactions. Hmm.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting... just having a "donate with BitCoin" link visible caused a noticeable drop in donations? Similarly with revenue on a merchant page. That seems bizarre.
Just speculating, but it could be a couple things: Providing more choices can often result in consumers simply giving up. At a former job we did an A/B test where we showed some visitors two options to buy our product and added a third option for other visitors. In the three option scenario, the bounce rate was about 10% higher. Or, it could be that there are folks for whom bitcoin is linked with drugs, gambling, pir…
To me bitcoin is trendy and kind of unprofessional. Steam is obviously a pretty reputable service, but for a long time accepting bitcoin screamed "this is a low quality service and we have no other ways to differentiate ourselves than using a buzzword currency"
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you could never move money over the wire anonymously before crypto came in. Well, except if you had a fake identity, which is illegal. Now you can. As obvious as it may seem that is a positive thing, keep in mind that a lot of people will not think so. Even more people can just don't appreciate it and could be convinced either way. If everyone thought anonymity was so good, fake identities wouldn't be illegal.
Anonymity is good not per se but because it implies privacy. Let's not argue if privacy is a good thing or not. Anonymity also supersedes fake identities.
Sorry, my intention was not to discuss merits of anonymity or privacy. I do agree those are good.
My point was that in discussing things like cryptocurrency (and other technical matters), many of its advocates go to arguments like yours with the silent assumption that certain aspects are obvious benefits. You forget that that's an opinion, and any argument based on it misses it mark with someone who doesn't share that opinion (or hasn't formed one). I think that's part of the reason "the oxygen in the room has been depleted".
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get this because the properties of bitcoin attracts two kinds of people. Goldbugs, because of how bitcoin is "mined" and is inherently deflationary. And gold is the one true currency, m'kay. Cypherpunks, because it is built around cryptographics. And cryptographics makes anything double plus good. Never mind that both kinds have a strong anti-establishment streak. That said, if they could get away form their anti…
> And that will drive an economy into the ground A consumerism-based, Earth-killing economy. But it will give raise to more sustainable economies.
Feudalism says hello...
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can tell you my personal issues with bitcoin. 1) I'm still bitter I threw all mine away. I had a few hundred in the early days and thought, "this isnt going anywhere".... 2) I'm one of HN's resident conspiracy theorists, for lack of a better term, and bitcoin can be seen as a threat to freedom because for all the awesome things it is, it is not anonymous . This may seem innocuous at first, but if you subscribe to t…
Can you recommend a good introductory book into the blockchain?
Both the developer guide and developer reference under https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-documentation. Deep reading but you will really understand the subject afterwards.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
> anti-environmentalist ... vast amounts of wasted electricity Ironically uses politically-charged language when discussing how bitcoin gets political. How about: "I'm concerned with the amount of electricity devoted to mining." Some of the bitcoin-is-going-to-take-over advocates could counter with, "That electricity cost is a lot better for the environment than the standing armies required to secure fiat money."
And, of course, the idea that bitcoin changes the world so radically that no one has an army anymore is absurd. But I think you've just touched on another reason why people react so strongly to bitcoin-related articles. It's like, bitcoin started out with a pretty good-sounding idea: decentralized currency, like the old Gnutella network except for money! hey I like it! Then people start talking about it and the first…
> no one will accept your patches to bump up the 21 million bitcoin supply...not so democratic.
Why would anyone willingly dilute their own money?
> legitimate critiques are always brushed off with really absurd replies
> And then we look at the environmental costs, and that's not good. Or the deflationary economics of the system itself, and those aren't good either. Or how it seems a lot more like an elaborate ponzi scheme, and that's not good either.
These are not legitimate critiques without real data to back them up. Without real data they are conjecture based on emotion.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Bitcoin network works perfectly fine and always has. The issue you are referring to was during a DOS attack on the network, which still wasn't an issue if you paid slightly higher fees to prioritize your transaction. The developer split on the blocksize increase was pretty heated for a while, but has largely blown over due to Bitcoin still working and the sky refusing to fall as some predicted. However, scaling i…
If Bitcoin users were naturally making more and more payments or there were more and more users, and then it ran up against the block size limit, how would you know whether there was a DOS attack or not? Wouldn't it look like a permanent DOS attack? Did it blow over because the block size limit was increased?
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Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
> anti-environmentalist ... vast amounts of wasted electricity Ironically uses politically-charged language when discussing how bitcoin gets political. How about: "I'm concerned with the amount of electricity devoted to mining." Some of the bitcoin-is-going-to-take-over advocates could counter with, "That electricity cost is a lot better for the environment than the standing armies required to secure fiat money."
> "That electricity cost is a lot better for the environment than the standing armies required to secure fiat money." There are better alternatives to brute-forcing hashes and generating nothing but waste heat in order to mine cryptocurrency. At least those cycles could be put toward something useful, like the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). Gridcoin uses proof-of-research in BOINC as the…
I understand the arguments that people have against proof of work but unfortunately they are extremely short sighted with respect to the whole system. You could say the same thing about all the infrastructure surrounding gold, but crypto-currencies and gold have serve a very valuable purpose that gets lost in the details: they have many of the properties of ideal money.
Gold isn't as valuable as it is today for any other reason. You can dream about a theoretical currency with a proof of work that accomplishes something but it won't have the same properties of ideal money until it is more widely used, mined and attacked.
Also don't forget that space heaters _actually_ do nothing but generate 'waste heat' and no one seems worried about those.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it because big ships don't maneuver so quickly?
No it's because the fed actively manages money supply while Bitcoin managed money supply by setting money growth at a predetermined rate. That and the vast majority of bitcoins are held for speculation instead of used as a currency.
Many other countries have currencies that fluctuate wildly even with their own central banks. Is the US just better at managing it? The Yen lost half of its value a few years ago.