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Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

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Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#61

Post by wereHamster »

gerry_shaw wrote: post #50
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…

So a 20% transaction fee on a $10 transaction? Who pays that fee?

The person who creates the transaction (ie. the buyer or customer).

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#62

Post by epicide »

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…

Serious question: even if a currency is only good for exchanging for other currencies, doesn't that still make it a currency?

In other words, even if you can't go buy clothing or games or hosting with BTC, doesn't the fact that you can exchange it for $LOCAL_CURRENCY (which can be used to buy those things) give it value?

Basically, a meta-currency or currency of currencies, if you will.

Edit: I realize we are saying the problem is a delay and pinning down the real value at a given time, but it sounds like that doesn't matter so much as the volatility itself, which should eventually settle. If delay were really a problem, then I would think stocks wouldn't be a thing.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#63

Post by koolba »

dmm wrote: post #27
Animats wrote: post #10

$20 transaction fee. Bitcoin for small payments is dead.

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…

> 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.

Bingo. Short of it is that consumers don't care. They just want to be able to buy something and have the transaction complete immediately. Whether it's a central payment network, a distributed consensus of 1000s of nodes, or a single "ring" from an in person cash register it's all the same.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#64

Post by webkike »

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…

If the transactions were quick and Bitcoin were usable, I'd argue that the price wouldn't be fluctuating

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#65

Post by bdcravens »

bigtunacan wrote: post #45
Klathmon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "$20 transaction fee" was an absolute top, and when that happened it was the single most congested the bitcoin network has ever been. It's nowhere near that right now. The total cost for your "median" transaction right now (at 226 bytes) is about $4.30 USD (at 150 sat/byte). Even if you double that to 300 sat/byte you are still at ~$9. Edit: I'm not saying even $4 fees are okay, just pointing out that it's not $2…

How are these transaction fee amounts even determined? With something like credit cards, PayPal, or EFT the fees are deterministic. With Bitcoin it seems fees are both ridiculously high, plus I can't even tell what I am going to be charged?

You can pick the fee with most Bitcoin wallets - the amount will determine how fast it confirms. This site gives guidance as to amount:

https://bitcoinfees.earn.com

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#66

Post by nvusuvu »

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

Bitcoin cash, a hard fork from the original Bitcoin. Super low fees, and the community that supports Bitcoin cash considers themselves the Bitcoin for the people. There are apps/wallets to use them. Coinbase will support Bitcoin cash by Jan 2018.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#67

Post by drabiega »

epicide wrote: post #62
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…

Serious question: even if a currency is only good for exchanging for other currencies, doesn't that still make it a currency? In other words, even if you can't go buy clothing or games or hosting with BTC, doesn't the fact that you can exchange it for $LOCAL_CURRENCY (which can be used to buy those things) give it value? Basically, a meta-currency or currency of currencies, if you will. Edit: I realize we are saying…

Where then, would you draw the line between a currency and a non-currency asset?

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#68

Post by spmurrayzzz »

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…

>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 transaction fees have gone up in the meantime. That is creating unsustainable problems for the customer support and makes BTC unusable for actual payments.

This is precisely what Lightning aims to solve, and at least anecdotally so far, has done so in the case of LTC.

(Though its hard to compare LTC to a chain with a market cap of over $200b even if the former has a skyrocketing trade volume)

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#69

Post by tadfisher »

epicide wrote: post #62
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…

Serious question: even if a currency is only good for exchanging for other currencies, doesn't that still make it a currency? In other words, even if you can't go buy clothing or games or hosting with BTC, doesn't the fact that you can exchange it for $LOCAL_CURRENCY (which can be used to buy those things) give it value? Basically, a meta-currency or currency of currencies, if you will. Edit: I realize we are saying…

No, it becomes an asset, like gold.

Re: Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

#70

Post by azernik »

drabiega wrote: post #67
epicide wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: even if a currency is only good for exchanging for other currencies, doesn't that still make it a currency? In other words, even if you can't go buy clothing or games or hosting with BTC, doesn't the fact that you can exchange it for $LOCAL_CURRENCY (which can be used to buy those things) give it value? Basically, a meta-currency or currency of currencies, if you will. Edit: I realize we are saying…

Where then, would you draw the line between a currency and a non-currency asset?

Liquidity, probably - how fast can you exchange how much of it.

Though I do personally think there's a lot more to a currency than that.

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