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So you buy bitcoins with dollars, Bitpay exchanges the bitcoins back into dollars, and then they hand the dollars over to Steam. And this is meant to be a good
by joosters 11y ago
So you buy bitcoins with dollars, Bitpay exchanges the bitcoins back into dollars, and then they hand the dollars over to Steam.
And this is meant to be a good thing?
- ZenoArrow 11y ago> "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.
- VMG 11y agoOr sell other goods and services.
- joosters 11y agoThen I'm converting dollars to bitcoin via my electricity bill, with even more inefficiency.
- lsadam0 11y agoThen don't?
- ssharp 11y agoExactly. Most people logically arrive at this conclusion when considering Bitcoin's merit as a currency. And that's before they even learn about the deep security issues, how hard it is to protect, how most Bitcoin services cannot be trusted, etc.
- lsadam0 11y agoDeep security issues? Like what?
- pjc50 11y agoYour money is exactly as secure as your private keys, and if they are stolen there is basically no prospect of getting it back. "Be your own bank" implies "be your own security division", which very few people are qualified to do.
- lsadam0 11y agoIf 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'.
- ssharp 11y agoI'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 of protections against theft and fraud, as well as consumer protections like chargebacks and transactions are reversible, of course.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago> "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.
- pauletienney 11y ago
- ZenoArrow 11y agoIt's a bootstrapping measure. The idea eventually is that Bitcoin will be a useful currency without such heavy reliance on converting back and forth with traditional currencies.
- apozem 11y ago> 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-bitcoin/ https://stratechery.com/2015/21-inc-and-the-future-of-bitcoi...
- stale2002 11y ago21 inc's ideas are a horrible scam. Why would you pay hundreds of dollars, to buy an inefficient miner that is 10% as efficient, when you could just buy hundreds of dollars of bitcoin.
- mateuszf 11y agoNot ideal if you start with dollars, but there are other currencies in use as well.
- antonios 11y agoYes. Why not? It gives value to Bitcoin nevertheless. I see those kinds of deals as steps towards greater Bitcoin acceptance.
- lsadam0 11y agoHonestly, why do you care what Valve does with the BTC? If people want to use it, so be it. The backend isn't your concern.
- joosters 11y agoValve doesn't handle any bit coins.
- ThatPlayer 11y agoHow do you know that? Bitpay allows you to keep a percentage as Bitcoins rather than converting them all to USD.
- lsadam0 11y agoOk, so? Bitcoin is an accepted payment method. Why should you care how exactly they handle processing of it? The only measure of success here is how much people do or do not use it. Are you honestly trying to argue against their acceptance by nitpicking the details of the backend implementation? 99.9% of people don't care.
- k33n 11y agoIt read to me as questioning the value of BTC since neither Bitpay or Valve are interested in holding BTC themselves.
- lsadam0 11y agoThat would not change my stance.
- statoshi 11y agoIt should be quite clear that in this particular instance, Valve has decided that Bitcoin has utility as a transfer of value. You're questioning whether or not Bitcoin has utility as a store of value / unit of account. It appears that to Valve it does not, but there is also a chicken/egg issue with bootstrapping a new currency given that Bitcoin doesn't have sufficient adoption yet to complete a full lifecycle in terms of usage. That is - Valve has no use in holding bitcoins because they can't use them to pay their bills. This may change at some point.
- eugeneionesco 11y agoAre you complaining that there are multiple ways to pay for games on steam? Is that really an issue?
- belorn 11y agoHow is this is different from paypal? So you have buy credit with local currency, paypall exchanges the currency to dollars, and then they transfer the dollars over to steams bank account. A better system would be direct payment, but thats a problem that society hasn't figured out yet. How to easy transfer money, without a middle man, in a safe, private respecting, and cost-free way.
- solotronics 11y agoThats already bitcoin. Personally I use it to settle debts with my friends. They are mostly tech people and find it fascinating to use. Bitcoins go from me directly to them without any middleman ( except the bitcoin network I guess ).
- easuter 11y agoOf course it's a good thing. Cyber criminals can purchase TF2 without having to use Paypal or a credit card now!