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This article is incoherent. Say what you like about Bitcoin but fraudulent payments are not possible. And yes Gabe is right that people in crypto are criminals

This article is incoherent. Say what you like about Bitcoin but fraudulent payments are not possible. And yes Gabe is right that people in crypto are criminals running scam projects

AlexandrB 5y ago
Fraudulent payments are very much possible in the "buying stuff with a stolen credit card" kind of way. This is a much more common type of fraud than the "double spend" attacks Bitcoin protects against. Bitcoin is only resilient to fraud only if you define fraud as "violating the rules of the blockchain". Any definition of fraud that involves meatspace is possible.
- allisdust 5y ago
  Stolen credit cards are a problem for the merchant because the charges could be reversed by the bank and merchant will incur the loss. I don't see how that is even remotely possible with Crypto. How did Steam lose money ? My guess is they might be accepting it through some payment provider (so not a true crypto) who has in their T&C to be able to reverse transactions (which must be happening in Cash on the Steam facing side).
  - erk__ 5y ago
    Yes they were using the BitPay provider when they were accepting Bitcoin, I assume they were made aware of that it was possible to track the transactions back to fraudulent credit card transactions, which I guess in some way could still make them liable for it.
    - rosndo 5y ago
      This is absolutely not what happened. Why come up with such crazy theories when this just comes down to double spends of unconfirmed transactions?
      - anonymousab 5y ago
        > Another thing was that the vast majority of those transactions, for whatever reason, were fraudulent, where people were repudiating transactions or using illegal sources of funds and things like that. Seems like it was multiple things and "fraud" is just a catch-all term and Gabe didn't bother to list everything that they considered to be fraud.
        rosndo 5y ago
        Odds are that Gabe doesn’t even actually know or remember the reason.
  - Duralias 5y ago
    It might not necessarily be that they lost money, it is possible it happened through the way you are suggesting, but opening up for crypto does mean Steam becomes a money laundering platform. Criminal creates a shit game and then uses the crypto to buy that game (with alt accounts) and since *very* few developers would be happy with getting paid in crypto, Valve has to convert it into fiat(?) currency.
    - allisdust 5y ago
      That could be a problem but then that would be money laundering not fraud (and Steam won't be on hook for it - just like Amazon isn't for its gift cards).
      - DangitBobby 5y ago
        The purchases are fraudulent. A single party buys the game from themselves many times, desiring to look like a diverse crowd making legitimate purchases.
  - anonymousab 5y ago
    > Stolen credit cards are a problem for the merchant because Because they don't want to process illegal transactions with illegally acquired money, because they don't want to abide or facilitate criminal conduct, wherever possible. Life and business is not merely nor always about the potential to lose money through legal ramifications.
- space_rock 5y ago
  Yes fraud is possible with credit cards. You correctly left out Bitcoin. As fraudulent payments are not possible with Bitcoin

This article is incoherent. Say what you like about Bitcoin but fraudulent payments are not possible. And yes Gabe is right that people in crypto are criminals running scam projects

AlexandrB 5y ago

Fraudulent payments are very much possible in the "buying stuff with a stolen credit card" kind of way. This is a much more common type of fraud than the "double spend" attacks Bitcoin protects against. Bitcoin is only resilient to fraud only if you define fraud as "violating the rules of the blockchain". Any definition of fraud that involves meatspace is possible.

allisdust 5y ago
Stolen credit cards are a problem for the merchant because the charges could be reversed by the bank and merchant will incur the loss. I don't see how that is even remotely possible with Crypto. How did Steam lose money ? My guess is they might be accepting it through some payment provider (so not a true crypto) who has in their T&C to be able to reverse transactions (which must be happening in Cash on the Steam facing side).
- erk__ 5y ago
  Yes they were using the BitPay provider when they were accepting Bitcoin, I assume they were made aware of that it was possible to track the transactions back to fraudulent credit card transactions, which I guess in some way could still make them liable for it.
  - rosndo 5y ago
    This is absolutely not what happened. Why come up with such crazy theories when this just comes down to double spends of unconfirmed transactions?
    - anonymousab 5y ago
      > Another thing was that the vast majority of those transactions, for whatever reason, were fraudulent, where people were repudiating transactions or using illegal sources of funds and things like that. Seems like it was multiple things and "fraud" is just a catch-all term and Gabe didn't bother to list everything that they considered to be fraud.
      - rosndo 5y ago
        Odds are that Gabe doesn’t even actually know or remember the reason.
- Duralias 5y ago
  It might not necessarily be that they lost money, it is possible it happened through the way you are suggesting, but opening up for crypto does mean Steam becomes a money laundering platform. Criminal creates a shit game and then uses the crypto to buy that game (with alt accounts) and since *very* few developers would be happy with getting paid in crypto, Valve has to convert it into fiat(?) currency.
  - allisdust 5y ago
    That could be a problem but then that would be money laundering not fraud (and Steam won't be on hook for it - just like Amazon isn't for its gift cards).
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      The purchases are fraudulent. A single party buys the game from themselves many times, desiring to look like a diverse crowd making legitimate purchases.
- anonymousab 5y ago
  > Stolen credit cards are a problem for the merchant because Because they don't want to process illegal transactions with illegally acquired money, because they don't want to abide or facilitate criminal conduct, wherever possible. Life and business is not merely nor always about the potential to lose money through legal ramifications.
space_rock 5y ago
Yes fraud is possible with credit cards. You correctly left out Bitcoin. As fraudulent payments are not possible with Bitcoin