Topic: It's zero confirmation deposits with bitcoin on Steam a risk? (Read 609 times)
I have payed in several sites with bitpay gateway specially during mobile topup sometime refill get sent instanly i mean in 0 confirmation where as sometime it take 1 confirmation. This may be because of the fee used in the transaction. I think bitpay analyse the fee associated with the transaction to accept it in 0 or after 1 confirmation. Still 0 confirm transactions are vulnerable to double spend.
Since afaik, bitpay is their payment processor for bitcoin, they're the ones who need to worry about this and if they're allowing it means they know what they're doing and that means they somehow are sure that no one will try double spend or maybe they have ways to prevent the second transaction with the same input from getting confirmed?
I do think this is a valid concern...
If you waited untill the blocks were pretty full for a while, then sent coins to your steam wallet with very low fees (so on average, you reasonably assume be sure they would take hours, if not days, to confirm), buy a game, sell that game for BTC, then double-spend one of the inputs => you might have found a way to scam the buyer of your steam game...
Offcourse, it'll depend on the policy steam has around this problem... Will they block a game that has been bought if the inputs are double spent, or will they take legal action agains the initial buyer, but let the second buyer keep his game. Also using an escrow to hold the funds for 1-2 games might make the risk a bit more acceptable for the second buyer.
I'm pretty sure they'll leave their zero-confirm policy once this has happened a couple of times tough.
If you waited untill the blocks were pretty full for a while, then sent coins to your steam wallet with very low fees (so on average, you reasonably assume be sure they would take hours, if not days, to confirm), buy a game, sell that game for BTC, then double-spend one of the inputs => you might have found a way to scam the buyer of your steam game...
Offcourse, it'll depend on the policy steam has around this problem... Will they block a game that has been bought if the inputs are double spent, or will they take legal action agains the initial buyer, but let the second buyer keep his game. Also using an escrow to hold the funds for 1-2 games might make the risk a bit more acceptable for the second buyer.
I'm pretty sure they'll leave their zero-confirm policy once this has happened a couple of times tough.
Shouldn't Steam at least force 1 confirmation? Because allowing 0 confirmations is pretty much allowing chargebacks. So I'm confused. Is this a risk for me?
Say if someone bought a game with bitcoin. Am I 100% safe, because my game cannot be frozen? Couldn't scammer buy $100 in wallet funds with a 0 fee TX, get it rejected by the network, but by the time Steam realises, the scammer has already bought the game and sold it.
Or am I missing something? Does bitpay keep broadcasting your TX?
Say if someone bought a game with bitcoin. Am I 100% safe, because my game cannot be frozen? Couldn't scammer buy $100 in wallet funds with a 0 fee TX, get it rejected by the network, but by the time Steam realises, the scammer has already bought the game and sold it.
Or am I missing something? Does bitpay keep broadcasting your TX?
How do you even chargeback with bitcoins?
Shouldn't Steam at least force 1 confirmation? Because allowing 0 confirmations is pretty much allowing chargebacks. So I'm confused. Is this a risk for me?
Say if someone bought a game with bitcoin. Am I 100% safe, because my game cannot be frozen? Couldn't scammer buy $100 in wallet funds with a 0 fee TX, get it rejected by the network, but by the time Steam realises, the scammer has already bought the game and sold it.
Or am I missing something? Does bitpay keep broadcasting your TX?
Say if someone bought a game with bitcoin. Am I 100% safe, because my game cannot be frozen? Couldn't scammer buy $100 in wallet funds with a 0 fee TX, get it rejected by the network, but by the time Steam realises, the scammer has already bought the game and sold it.
Or am I missing something? Does bitpay keep broadcasting your TX?
I have seen that casinos are using this same method ( 0 confirmations deposit). If casinos are not affraid about chargebacks i don't think that it can be problem for Steam.
Shouldn't Steam at least force 1 confirmation? Because allowing 0 confirmations is pretty much allowing chargebacks. So I'm confused. Is this a risk for me?
Say if someone bought a game with bitcoin. Am I 100% safe, because my game cannot be frozen? Couldn't scammer buy $100 in wallet funds with a 0 fee TX, get it rejected by the network, but by the time Steam realises, the scammer has already bought the game and sold it.
Or am I missing something? Does bitpay keep broadcasting your TX?
Say if someone bought a game with bitcoin. Am I 100% safe, because my game cannot be frozen? Couldn't scammer buy $100 in wallet funds with a 0 fee TX, get it rejected by the network, but by the time Steam realises, the scammer has already bought the game and sold it.
Or am I missing something? Does bitpay keep broadcasting your TX?
Jump to: