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Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

blog.bitpay.com

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Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#91

Post by exo762 »

aliakhtar wrote: post #72

In 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.

Steam/bitpay don't wait for transaction for put money into your steam wallet. Also, no exchange rates are involved in any meaningful way. This offer is for people who can handle few percent exposure on their 100USD "investment" into BTC.

A lot of people don't have debit cards. A lot of kids can't own debit cards legally. For them Bitcoin might be the only option.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#92

Post by flatline »

VMG wrote: post #54
flatline wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash, visa MasterCard etc. - there are many banking options. There is only one Bitcoin network, and it is currently very centralized.

True, in that sense it's less centralized. But each of those payment provider you pick holds your assets and can restrict your transactions any time. With Bitcoin that is not possible.

Miners can elect to not include certain transactions. I'm not aware of any evidence that this is happening now except with low/no-fee transactions, but the centralization of hash power makes it possible and, I would contend, inevitable, given sufficient time and adoption.

We already see this with the banking institutions that grow like barnacles on the side of the blockchain - they track where their customers spend coins, and blacklist the customer if they go to e.g. DNMs. If bitcoin gained wide enough adoption that people could cut out these middle men, the government would have much more incentive to inject itself into the mining process. There is already ample evidence they are doing various things on-chain to track the spending of large/active users, see e.g. https://reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4fov8h/i_regula...

Edit: FWIW, Bitpay is one of these institutions. Steam doens't accept bitcoin, they accept fiat paid by Bitpay on behalf of someone with bitcoin.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#93

Post by mbmott »

I could see this as Steam testing the Bitcoin waters. Steam games created an entirely new market of digital items changing hands for real world money, and this is done globally across all currencies--bitcoin would be an ideal fit. I could also see value in using bitcoin to reward content creators (modders). Obviously this is crazy speculation, but seem to be solid use cases.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#94

Post by ZenoArrow »

ssharp wrote: post #71
lsadam0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I leave cash on the street should I expect it to be safe? Is that a deep security issue? You implied there were deep fundamental flaws in BTC security, but your response shows nothing of the sort. Your 'deep flaw' is 'you have to protect your private keys'. You are describing a UX flaw, and I would agree with that. Objectively, you have exposed no 'deep security issues'.

I'm not sure what Bitcoin equivalent of "leaving cash on the street" you're inferring. It might be helpful if you elaborated on that. Bitcoin's non-physical nature (as compared to paper and coin currencies), I think, makes it more of a metaphor to a bank account or debit/credit card than a currency. This likely is a UX flaw, as you state, but it's a pretty big flaw. And credit cards, in most jurisdictions, have lots…

> "I'm not sure what Bitcoin equivalent of "leaving cash on the street" you're inferring. It might be helpful if you elaborated on that."

Bitcoins are a form of digital cash.

You store Bitcoins in a wallet. If you lose your Bitcoin wallet you lose your bitcoins. In a similar sense, if you lose your wallet containing notes/coins, you lose your notes/coins. The security risk is the same.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#95

Post by gruez »

transfire wrote: post #89

I thought Bitcoin had run into a fundamental problem that transactions were now taking hours co complete. And that an internal battle among developers on the fix remained unresolved. Did I miss something?

Bitpay (steam's payment processor) accepts 0-confirmation transactions

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#96

Post by wraithm112 »

transfire wrote: post #89

I thought Bitcoin had run into a fundamental problem that transactions were now taking hours co complete. And that an internal battle among developers on the fix remained unresolved. Did I miss something?

Nah. That was just media insanity. Bitcoin functions just fine in the face of crazy politics. The whole point of it is to be unkillable.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#97

Post by mbrock »

forgetsusername wrote: post #84
Cyph0n wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but you're looking at Bitcoin from a narrow viewpoint. There are in fact people who actually need Bitcoin in their day-to-day. My home country Tunisia for example has very strict currency controls in place, which means that it is impossible to purchase any goods from outside the country or even transfer money overseas. The government now provides rechargeable card with a 1000 TND (~500 USD) limit that can…

That's a wonderful use case for BTC. But the overwhelming majority of bitcoin investment, marketing and ownership isn't coming from Tunisia. It's coming from the West (and China), where most people have no problems spending or obtaining currency (maybe China does). Why are Westerners so eager to make money off of people's inability to move money around poor countries, and why is it supported?

One major reason why Bitcoin is used in the West is that it enables integrity and privacy when making online purchases, as opposed to bank-issued cards.

I've used BTC in an emergency situation, to transfer money when I would otherwise have needed to wait for several days for an international bank transfer (and then would also have hit my bank's foreign ATM withdrawal limit).

Your third paragraph is a veiled insult based on a notion that if applied consistently would deem the international banking system at least as immoral as Bitcoin.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#99

Post by apozem »

joosters wrote: post #35
ZenoArrow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "So you buy bitcoins with dollars, Bitpay exchanges the bitcoins back into dollars, and then they hand the dollars over to Steam." You don't have to buy bitcoins directly, you can mine them.

Then I'm converting dollars to bitcoin via my electricity bill, with even more inefficiency.

> While ASICs represent the fixed cost of Bitcoin mining, the expense of electricity is the marginal cost; indeed, Bitcoin is, for all intents and purposes, the digital representation of electricity.

https://stratechery.com/2015/21-inc-and-the-future-of-bitcoi...

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#100

Post by mbmott »

transfire wrote: post #89

I thought Bitcoin had run into a fundamental problem that transactions were now taking hours co complete. And that an internal battle among developers on the fix remained unresolved. Did I miss something?

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 is still a major issue that some very smart people are working on.
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