Topic: As of today, Steam will no longer support Bitcoin as a payment method! (Read 1037 times)
January 07, 2018, 08:45:17 AM
Hmmm are they going to use DGB instead?
January 07, 2018, 08:43:30 AM
What will they accept instead? 
this is normally news bitcoin bitcoin is so unstable last days price moving fast and fee rising a lot.some of exchange sites and others also apply more fee. people can’t just pay more and more fee with small gaining.
hope goode news happen fast
January 07, 2018, 03:30:48 AM
What will they accept instead?
STEEM does not support bitcoin as a normal move, who would accept a currency that fluctuates so dramatically? 
first of all STEEM is an altcoin and a platform which as nothing to do with Steam which is a gaming platform owned by the company Valve.
and it has been accepting bitcoin for over a year and a huge number of people were using it during that time no matter what the fluctuations were. the only reason they stopped was the high fees which are a lot bigger than most of the games they are selling/
January 07, 2018, 03:14:10 AM
What will they accept instead?
STEEM does not support bitcoin as a normal move, who would accept a currency that fluctuates so dramatically? January 07, 2018, 03:11:56 AM
We can't blame the Steam community since Bitcoin is a bit slower nowadays. There are other payment methods you can use like Online Banking or Paypal, if ever you have one.
December 12, 2017, 12:54:19 AM
I think we'll be seeing new options for crypto and games very soon... 
The game we are making is integrating a wallet, tokens and purchasing into the game. https://youtu.be/GhLwvuBieOI
Not the same as being able to use it on Steam, but, my point is I think we'll be seeing some major changes in the near future.
Nobody really needs steam in order to get games with Bitcoins. There's a lot of retailers wanting to exchange their gift codes for BTC.The game we are making is integrating a wallet, tokens and purchasing into the game. https://youtu.be/GhLwvuBieOI
Not the same as being able to use it on Steam, but, my point is I think we'll be seeing some major changes in the near future.
December 07, 2017, 05:58:11 PM
Actually I don't understand the decision that much. People pay with Bitcoin and they give the devs the amount of Bitcoin that was paid (minus the fees). What's wrong in that? They don't like profits?
December 07, 2017, 05:54:22 PM
From the blog post:
Bitcoin had a plenty of 20-30% drops and spikes this year and the year before, it's simply not true that volaility has increased, unless they measure volatility in flat amounts, which is dumb.
I've personally used Bitcoin 2 times with Steam, and to those who don't know how it works, they actually have Bitpay as intermediary, and Bitpay requires transactions to be sent and confirmed within 15 minutes - so the chances of BTC dropping 20% in 15 minutes are actually extremely small, and all the volatility is handled by Bitpay. The real problem here is that customers have to use high fees to get their tx included in the next block, otherwise Bitpay will have to send their transaction back.
Quote
Historically, the value of Bitcoin has been volatile, but the degree of volatility has become extreme in the last few months, losing as much as 25% in value over a period of days.
Bitcoin had a plenty of 20-30% drops and spikes this year and the year before, it's simply not true that volaility has increased, unless they measure volatility in flat amounts, which is dumb.
I've personally used Bitcoin 2 times with Steam, and to those who don't know how it works, they actually have Bitpay as intermediary, and Bitpay requires transactions to be sent and confirmed within 15 minutes - so the chances of BTC dropping 20% in 15 minutes are actually extremely small, and all the volatility is handled by Bitpay. The real problem here is that customers have to use high fees to get their tx included in the next block, otherwise Bitpay will have to send their transaction back.
You can't compare the volatility now with the previous years, because of the huge price gap!
Major currencies average between 0.5% and 1.0%.
And this is the volatility of BTC in US dollars per 30 days in 2017. You see the "problem"?
https://i.imgur.com/LdAZLRY.jpg
There's no huge price gap, volatility is measured in percentages (just like on your chart) and not some flat differences in price.
And why did you choose such a small time frame, completely ignoring all historical data?
Here's how it actually looks like:
So, while volatility in this year increased in frequency compared to 2015 and 2016, it's amplitude is way lower than it was in 2010-2014, and it seems like the general trend is that volatility will be decreasing in upcoming years. And again, this is not a problem of Steam, because it's all handled by Bitpay, Steam was never receiving any BTC directly. And by the way, it means that not much has changed actually - people can deposit BTC to BitPay or Xapo accounts and spend those funds on Steam or any other place that accepts credit cards.
Volatility is usually measured daily, monthly, annually and throughout the lifetime.
Is not as simple as looking at the % value and say it is more/less volatile.
You can't take the standard deviation of a fresh currency like Bitcoin and measure it yearly against a fiat(USD) , and say look btc was more volatile before because the amplitudes were higher.
As shown in your chart.
The higher the value of BTC/USD the more each % deviation count towards the weighted average . When BTC was 10$, a standard deviation of 10% monthly wouldn't have yield much to the weighted average.
However at 15000$, 3% volatility is way off the chart compared to when it was 10% at 10$.
Thats probably how Steam financial team based their decision on, and why BTC is extremely volatile now.
December 07, 2017, 04:55:07 PM
I added funds to my Steam wallet once and it wasn't that bad. Transaction confirmed quite fast and the fee wasn't too high. It's funny that they blame Bitcoin instead of BitPay and other big companies which still haven't introduced SegWit support. Fees are much lower and faster when you send transactions between SegWit addresses. I can't wait to see Bech32 addresses being actually used. Electrum has already introduced support for them instead of legacy compatible SegWit addresses (the ones that start with 3).
No average person knows what SegWit is. Get realistic, sending bitcoin was thought provoking enough, now segwit? I can see why Steam dropped it
December 07, 2017, 04:52:25 PM
From the blog post:
Bitcoin had a plenty of 20-30% drops and spikes this year and the year before, it's simply not true that volaility has increased, unless they measure volatility in flat amounts, which is dumb.
I've personally used Bitcoin 2 times with Steam, and to those who don't know how it works, they actually have Bitpay as intermediary, and Bitpay requires transactions to be sent and confirmed within 15 minutes - so the chances of BTC dropping 20% in 15 minutes are actually extremely small, and all the volatility is handled by Bitpay. The real problem here is that customers have to use high fees to get their tx included in the next block, otherwise Bitpay will have to send their transaction back.
Quote
Historically, the value of Bitcoin has been volatile, but the degree of volatility has become extreme in the last few months, losing as much as 25% in value over a period of days.
Bitcoin had a plenty of 20-30% drops and spikes this year and the year before, it's simply not true that volaility has increased, unless they measure volatility in flat amounts, which is dumb.
I've personally used Bitcoin 2 times with Steam, and to those who don't know how it works, they actually have Bitpay as intermediary, and Bitpay requires transactions to be sent and confirmed within 15 minutes - so the chances of BTC dropping 20% in 15 minutes are actually extremely small, and all the volatility is handled by Bitpay. The real problem here is that customers have to use high fees to get their tx included in the next block, otherwise Bitpay will have to send their transaction back.
You can't compare the volatility now with the previous years, because of the huge price gap!
Major currencies average between 0.5% and 1.0%.
And this is the volatility of BTC in US dollars per 30 days in 2017. You see the "problem"?
https://i.imgur.com/LdAZLRY.jpg
There's no huge price gap, volatility is measured in percentages (just like on your chart) and not some flat differences in price.
And why did you choose such a small time frame, completely ignoring all historical data?
Here's how it actually looks like:
So, while volatility in this year increased in frequency compared to 2015 and 2016, it's amplitude is way lower than it was in 2010-2014, and it seems like the general trend is that volatility will be decreasing in upcoming years. And again, this is not a problem of Steam, because it's all handled by Bitpay, Steam was never receiving any BTC directly. And by the way, it means that not much has changed actually - people can deposit BTC to BitPay or Xapo accounts and spend those funds on Steam or any other place that accepts credit cards.
December 07, 2017, 09:12:43 AM
Now you have to pay Stim by credit card, for me it's less convenient.
December 07, 2017, 09:02:06 AM
Should've posted the source: http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1464096684955433613
From the business point of view of Steam, it's understable how Bitcoin isn't viable to be accepted as payment method yet, there's too much room for complaints from customers, though I think they are exaggerating with the 20$ transaction fee.
I'm ok with them putting on hold the use of cryptocurrency (BTC in this case) for the time being. Hopefully the Lightning Network is going to sort this out and Steam will accept btc again.
From the business point of view of Steam, it's understable how Bitcoin isn't viable to be accepted as payment method yet, there's too much room for complaints from customers, though I think they are exaggerating with the 20$ transaction fee.
I'm ok with them putting on hold the use of cryptocurrency (BTC in this case) for the time being. Hopefully the Lightning Network is going to sort this out and Steam will accept btc again.
After reading the announcement, I feel it is justified for them to disable Bitcoin payments due to high fees and volatility.
I'm guessing the volatility by itself wouldn't be such a big problem, but combined with the high fees it's probably going to cause many users complaining to Valve.
I am hopeful though that once lightning network is ready, they will enable Bitcoin payments again.
Quote from the announcement:
Quote
At this point, it has become untenable to support Bitcoin as a payment option. We may re-evaluate whether Bitcoin makes sense for us and for the Steam community at a later date.
December 07, 2017, 08:55:00 AM
Yes, bitcoin is increasingly becoming a means of accumulation. The high cost of payments throws it back from this market. I think the Lightning Network technology will solve this problem. Unfortunately, the developers do not report the specific timing of launching payments using the Lightning Network
December 07, 2017, 08:46:53 AM
I think the game website made the decision because the transaction costs caused, as we all know, now the bitcoin transaction cost is too high, if the game player on the site to buy props to pay high fees, usually this game will be inhibited, the need for a large number of members of the game is bad the.
December 07, 2017, 08:41:58 AM
I have a feeling they will pick other coins that are cheaper to transact with like bch,dash or litecoin. Bitcoin is no longer a payment method.
December 07, 2017, 08:30:54 AM
I'm not really surprised. As it is now, Bitcoin is not a good option for payment services.. the tx fees are ridiculous and confirmations take too long. Even banks do "instant" transactions nowadays, so a solution needs to be found for this.
They are starting to compare Bitcoin to gold, which at the moment is a more accurate analogy investment-wise, if you ask me.
They are starting to compare Bitcoin to gold, which at the moment is a more accurate analogy investment-wise, if you ask me.
I call bullshit. Banks do it only between accounts within the same bank. You can't have an instant transaction between different banks and you can't have money sent during weekends and at nights. I have been doing it for many years and my last transaction sent on Monday needed over 24h to appear on the account of my friend in a different bank within the same country. My another transaction that was sent on Saturday arrived on Tuesday (!) because they don't work in the evenings, nights, on Sundays, and it takes up to 48 hours anyway.
Good thing you don't have to use your checking account to buy games from Steam, you can just use a debit card.
Bitcoin can not be gold if it loses its utility. Gold/Silver became store of wealth because they have huge amount of utility in jewelry and industrial.
You both have some valid points.
@darkangel11 I put "instant" in quotations, because I know they're not there completely yet. Banks in general don't work in the weekends and nights, but in my country if I send money from my bank to a different bank and it's made before 12 in the afternoon, the amount will show up in the other account the same day! I think it's a small step to achieving this all day and then weekends. Especially if they want to combat Bitcoin on that front.
@kokojie I do believe Bitcoin has some similarities to gold. I've seen it happen; when the stock markets dip, people move to gold and increasingly more to Bitcoin as well. In the crypto space, Bitcoin has a similar role of stability. People go back to Bitcoin to store profits or dampen losses. But you are right; if Bitcoin loses its utility, it will no longer be used as a store of value/wealth. It actually can never BE gold because BTC is what it is and gold can be refined as you said
December 07, 2017, 01:14:40 AM
This is really a sad news. Steam had done a great job by accepting Bitcoin as a payment. But times have changed now. Bitcoin hasn't been a reliable payment option lately. Longer confirmations timings, Higher transaction fee isn't what Bitcoin was actually meant to be.
Last year everyone wanted to buy things with Bitcoin as it was almost free to send it and magical. But now its a store of value used to make you rich instantly:(
Last year everyone wanted to buy things with Bitcoin as it was almost free to send it and magical. But now its a store of value used to make you rich instantly:(
It must have taken them a while to arrive at this decision but with immediate effect is the concern here that they didn't even give their users the right amount of notification in other to prepare themselves another alternative to use or made available. Its really an unfortunate thing at this time though.
The bold part is not really that part but because the value of bitcoin has greatly increased, that is why I would shout if .0008btc to pay as transaction fee today is close to 10$ compared to a little above $2 that it was not less than 6 months ago but we are all happy with the price of bitcoin not the fees that comes with it. Confirmation time is slow but its better compared to some time in the past.
December 06, 2017, 07:48:46 PM
Major currencies average between 0.5% and 1.0%.
The major currencies tend to fluctuate within a certain range (which quite gradually decreases over time). Bitcoin, on the other hand, doesn't have any range - it could be $500-1000 one year and over $10,000 the next. To Steam, they look at this and even if they receive fiat money for a flat fee from BitPay (I doubt that they hold much or any of the BTC that they receive), they wonder what will happen to their customers if the range moves downwards rather than upwards. Would they be afraid? Would they blame Steam or complain to them?
You can imagine that it's a lot of uncertainty to them, especially when only a fairly small amount of their payments would be in BTC anyway.
That is why Bitcoin is extremely volatile, there exist non other major currencies that have a standard deviation of monthly returns of over 3%. So it is indeed wise of Steam to remove Bitcoin until it has stabilized a bit.
The worst part is if the buyers request refunds after the BTC price rise 20% or decrease 20%, either way Steam have to cover the differences.
December 06, 2017, 07:02:23 PM
Major currencies average between 0.5% and 1.0%.
The major currencies tend to fluctuate within a certain range (which quite gradually decreases over time). Bitcoin, on the other hand, doesn't have any range - it could be $500-1000 one year and over $10,000 the next. To Steam, they look at this and even if they receive fiat money for a flat fee from BitPay (I doubt that they hold much or any of the BTC that they receive), they wonder what will happen to their customers if the range moves downwards rather than upwards. Would they be afraid? Would they blame Steam or complain to them?
You can imagine that it's a lot of uncertainty to them, especially when only a fairly small amount of their payments would be in BTC anyway.
December 06, 2017, 05:55:58 PM
I hope this reality check will help to bring back the community to planet Earth...
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