[kaishiro]

That's not actually the only issue, unfortunately. Steam did in fact accept Bitcoin for a while, but it was dropped in 2017, with Newell stating:

> “We had problems when we started accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option. 50% of those transactions were fraudulent, which is a mind-boggling number. These were customers we didn’t want to have.” [1]

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/steam-co-founder-reveals-why-...

[Feeble]

That's quite interesting, I wonder how they were fraudulent as bitcoin transactions dont have chargebacks etc. In the article they also mention that the price for the game would fluctuate which seems to indicate they actually priced the games in Bitcoin. Normally price would be Euro, USD etc and price conversion to Bitcoin would be done at check out. I guess these were the early days though =)

[udev4096]

2017 was definitely not early. Bitcoin gained a lot of traction since 2014

[cosmic_cheese]

Seems like a catch-22. Crypto can’t be used like legitimate currency because it’s not used like legitimate currency, and fraud can’t be addressed because there’s no regulation and no mechanisms by which to make victims whole.

There are parts of me that can see some appeal in cryptocurrency but I can’t see any way around this, at least not without impacting what made it appealing in the first place.

[AlienRobot]

I think this is the biggest problem with crypto that it will never be able to solve. Every year there are millions of dollars lost in crypto due to scams (the "send me crypto and I'll give you money" kind). The instant you have a digital good people can actually buy with crypto and sell for real money, it becomes a money laundering machine.

Like you could get money from ransomware, buy a ton of games on steam, then sell the account to a third party.

[wmf]

This will probably be "solved" by legally exempting stablecoins from nemo dat. Basically stablecoins will be declared clean by law so recipients don't care.

[hippich]

While volatility indeed can be a problem (depending on how the whole thing is setup), I fail to come up with scenario of 50% fraudulent transactions... Does anyone have links to more details on what kind of fraud they meant?

[buzer]

Double spend. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30478262

[udev4096]

That's a lie. How can you even make a fraudulent bitcoin transaction?

[buzer]

By spending your coins twice. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30478262

[habinero]

Money laundering, for one. You release some dumb asset flip and then "buy" it with your dirty crypto and Valve turns it into nice clean fiat money.

And yes, that is on Valve to prevent.

[victorbjorklund]

Fraudlent is accoriding to the law. If I steal your bitcoin I spend them on Steam it is fraudlent. I know cryptobros think stealing bitcoins are OK and shouldnt count as fraud but law isnt written by cryptobros.