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Humble founder here. Bitcoin would be a great topic for another blog post, we have a really long love-hate relationship with it. Don't worry, Bitcoin support

by jeff18 10y ago

Humble founder here. Bitcoin would be a great topic for another blog post, we have a really long love-hate relationship with it. Don't worry, Bitcoin support will hopefully return to our store and gaming bundles eventually. We know what we need to do to turn it back on (more or less, hook it into our SMS verification system) but we have many higher priority tasks work on. We are hiring if you know anyone: https://jobs.humblebundle.com/careers/ https://jobs.humblebundle.com/careers/ :) While bitcoin is great for preventing chargebacks, it is inherently anonymous. That is good for certain use cases, but when you are trying to enforce a strict per customer limit, it is a nightmare. We invested a lot of resources into doing what we can to combat it, but eventually we figured that we had more important things to do and had to tap out. Almost 100% of the bitcoin traffic was bad actors, and even so it was such a tiny fraction of our sales, like under 0.05%. There are a lot of diehard bitcoin users, like yourself, and I would love to support your preferred payment method again, but it is an incredible amount of work to do safely.

akavel 10y ago
Curious how do you know they were bad actors, given the anonymity? Were those some known stolen bitcoin wallets or something? Sorry if the answer is obvious, I'm not a bitcoin user.
- nathancahill 10y ago
  Typically "bad actors" in this situation are bad in regards to the company, it's not a definition of their person or the source of their money (although those often coincide).
- luchs 10y ago
  I'd guess that they track keys which appear on reseller sites. So the "bad actor" comes from later use, not from e.g. stolen Bitcoins.
- jeff18 10y ago
  Good bitcoin purchases: $22 soandso@gmail.com [30 minutes later] $50 someone@real-company.com [30 minutes later] $15 person@real-company.com etc. Bad bitcoin purchases: $1.00 asdfklasdklfm1@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm2@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm3@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm4@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm5@yahoo.com [1 second later] etc. (queue removal of bitcoin)
  - ThatPlayer 10y ago
    Have you considered allowing them if you have a valid credit card on file. For example, I'm currently a Humble Monthly subscriber which already gives me a one click purchase options through the credit card on file. Vultr, a VPS Host, accepts Bitcoins but started to require a valid credit card or Paypal purchase before accepting Bitcoins to prevent ToS violators who used Bitcoin.
    - kevindong 10y ago
      But would that not defeat the purpose of Bitcoin (don't need to interact with the massive financial institutions, anonymity, etc.)?
      - samb1729 10y ago
        It's not necessarily the case that someone would want to use Bitcoin for anonymity, it might just be a more convenient payment method or something else. Doesn't hurt to give people more places to spend their Bitcoin even if the circumstances are less than ideal.
        kevindong 10y ago
        In what way can Bitcoin be considered a meaningful alternative (however you define it) if you also have to input a valid credit card number (that, presumably, the merchant will run the traditional $1 verification charge on)? The reality is that Bitcoin is less convenient than using a regular credit card (because, realistically, you're not going to be mining Bitcoin but rather you'll be buying Bitcoin using your regular credit card/bank account). I would argue that Bitcoin is also worse in every way (no chargebacks, wild fluctuations in the valuation of a unit of Bitcoin, etc.) if you also don't care about anonymity and the product you're buying is fully legal.
ploxiln 10y ago
ahhhh ... it's because of the "name your own price" model and offering of steam keys. You want to limit to one super-cheap steam-key per person. So that's more of a "promotion" than a classic exchange. Corner case ;)
- al_chemist 10y ago
  "Name your own price" and "Humble" in the name are just marketing gimmicks. It's just a business like any other - they want you to be generous, pay more than other people. If you take "name your own price" honestly, they try to block you. Under $1? "Sorry, minimal name your own price is $1." Paying under average price? "Sorry, please try our captcha roulette or increase your 'name your price'". I can't believe they don't require scan of passport and utility bills to "assure better quality of service".
blhack 10y ago
The bitcoin die-hards will lynch me for saying this, but: I think this is a good example of where using a side-agreement (sortof a sidechain, I guess?) would be a good thing. So: don't accept bitcoin payments, accept coinbase payments, but only one per coinbase account.
Datguysteven 10y ago
Have you used websites that detect proxy & bad ips like getipintel.net? I'm curious if there's a correlation between abuse and proxy ips.
StavrosK 10y ago
I'd be happy to verify my phone number if it meant I could buy anything with Bitcoin afterwards. There are other payment solutions that work, too, I just really really like the UX of Bitcoin and the fact that it's pretty much cash. I don't need permission from my bank to transact.

by jeff18 10y ago

akavel 10y ago

Curious how do you know they were bad actors, given the anonymity? Were those some known stolen bitcoin wallets or something? Sorry if the answer is obvious, I'm not a bitcoin user.

nathancahill 10y ago
Typically "bad actors" in this situation are bad in regards to the company, it's not a definition of their person or the source of their money (although those often coincide).
luchs 10y ago
I'd guess that they track keys which appear on reseller sites. So the "bad actor" comes from later use, not from e.g. stolen Bitcoins.
jeff18 10y ago
Good bitcoin purchases: $22 soandso@gmail.com [30 minutes later] $50 someone@real-company.com [30 minutes later] $15 person@real-company.com etc. Bad bitcoin purchases: $1.00 asdfklasdklfm1@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm2@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm3@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm4@yahoo.com [1 second later] $1.00 asdfklasdklfm5@yahoo.com [1 second later] etc. (queue removal of bitcoin)
- ThatPlayer 10y ago
  Have you considered allowing them if you have a valid credit card on file. For example, I'm currently a Humble Monthly subscriber which already gives me a one click purchase options through the credit card on file. Vultr, a VPS Host, accepts Bitcoins but started to require a valid credit card or Paypal purchase before accepting Bitcoins to prevent ToS violators who used Bitcoin.
  - kevindong 10y ago
    But would that not defeat the purpose of Bitcoin (don't need to interact with the massive financial institutions, anonymity, etc.)?
    - samb1729 10y ago
      It's not necessarily the case that someone would want to use Bitcoin for anonymity, it might just be a more convenient payment method or something else. Doesn't hurt to give people more places to spend their Bitcoin even if the circumstances are less than ideal.
      - kevindong 10y ago
        In what way can Bitcoin be considered a meaningful alternative (however you define it) if you also have to input a valid credit card number (that, presumably, the merchant will run the traditional $1 verification charge on)? The reality is that Bitcoin is less convenient than using a regular credit card (because, realistically, you're not going to be mining Bitcoin but rather you'll be buying Bitcoin using your regular credit card/bank account). I would argue that Bitcoin is also worse in every way (no chargebacks, wild fluctuations in the valuation of a unit of Bitcoin, etc.) if you also don't care about anonymity and the product you're buying is fully legal.

ploxiln 10y ago

ahhhh ... it's because of the "name your own price" model and offering of steam keys. You want to limit to one super-cheap steam-key per person. So that's more of a "promotion" than a classic exchange. Corner case ;)

al_chemist 10y ago
"Name your own price" and "Humble" in the name are just marketing gimmicks. It's just a business like any other - they want you to be generous, pay more than other people. If you take "name your own price" honestly, they try to block you. Under $1? "Sorry, minimal name your own price is $1." Paying under average price? "Sorry, please try our captcha roulette or increase your 'name your price'". I can't believe they don't require scan of passport and utility bills to "assure better quality of service".

blhack 10y ago

The bitcoin die-hards will lynch me for saying this, but: I think this is a good example of where using a side-agreement (sortof a sidechain, I guess?) would be a good thing. So: don't accept bitcoin payments, accept coinbase payments, but only one per coinbase account.

Datguysteven 10y ago

Have you used websites that detect proxy & bad ips like getipintel.net? I'm curious if there's a correlation between abuse and proxy ips.

StavrosK 10y ago

I'd be happy to verify my phone number if it meant I could buy anything with Bitcoin afterwards. There are other payment solutions that work, too, I just really really like the UX of Bitcoin and the fact that it's pretty much cash. I don't need permission from my bank to transact.