That was originally one of the intended purposes of cryptocurrency, or at least claimed to be. Too bad we can’t have anything without needing to make it an investment engine.
MagicShel@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
If Steam or someone went to crypto just to kick the processors out, that might be one thing that would actually make me look at crypto with something other than derision.
crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 days ago
Government essentially guaranteed that by classifying it as such, e.g. SEC regulating crypto
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Huh? Investment people definitely didn’t wait for that classification to start turning it into a speculations market. The SEC actions were largely reactive.
My local bank’s investment and wealth management bros were already all about crypto long before regulations.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 days ago
Gov can’t really do anything about it. Bitcoin was designed to be gov agnostic. They can tell you it’s illegal but there’s also really no way for them to know (if you’re not dumb).
Also with the orangutan in chief being something of a crypto grifter himself, it’s not likely to be regulated at all.
vithigar@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
They accepted BTC for a while but stopped. The other comment here mentioned the transaction fees being a problem for purchases on the scale of steam game prices, but it wasn’t just that. A big problem was crypto volatility and transaction processing time. They found that very often by the time a transaction cleared the value had swung enough that they were getting amounts that failed to align with the actual prices of the games people were buying.
It’s more stable now, so maybe that would be less of a problem, but I feel it highlights a big problem with crypto in general and that is that even when you do find places that accept crypto nothing is priced in crypto. It’s basically always just a proxy for USD using whatever its current market value is.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Stable coins exist to counter that very problem. There’s several out there that are pegged to the value of the dollar, and are mostly used as intermediaries when trading between other coins.
USDT is one such option.
scintilla@beehaw.org 2 days ago
using a stable coin that has that much controversy as an example kinda sums up crypto lmao.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I don’t pay attention to those, so it was the only one I knew the name of.
Dave@lemmy.nz 2 days ago
I spent ages buying games on steam with Bitcoin years ago. They dropped it when transaction fees got bigger than the game cost (I don’t think they ever supported crypto other than Bitcoin, and that was through a specific payment processor that took the Bitcoin and gave Valve real money).
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Well yes, this was the original intent of crypto. Putting payment in the hands of the people. It’s only been made terrible by tech bros and greed the same way the Internet has.
makeitwonderful@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
Daydreaming about this now.
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 2 days ago
That’s what Backpage tried to do when the cc processors pulled out. The owners of Backpage were at some point charged with money laundering among many many other crimes. The years of legal battles that started in 2018 drove one of them to suicide. Would not recommend.
ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Backpage is very different than Valve. Backpage execs were directly involved in the pimping of minors, this were proven in court.
I don’t believe Valve execs are pimping minors through Steam.
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 2 days ago
No, they were not directly involved and no, pimping minors was not proven in court. Money laundering and conspiracy to facilitate prostitution were the charges that stuck. In fact, prosecutors claiming they were involved in child sex trafficking caused a mistrial apnews.com/…/business-trials-3b1c9d3e59e90cd60764…
The point is not about what they did or didn’t do, it’s that if you try to go outside the system you get hammered.
ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 11 hours ago
Thanks for the correction.
I’m not comfortable with tech execs making bank off sex workers, but I should aim to be more familiar with the outcome of the case.
belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Its not different because in both instances it was CC companies being anti sex.
Realpage being a “den of CSAM” was not happening at any scale the CC companies were actively worried about and it was about defunding sex workers.
Same deal here. This is about control and puritanism.
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 2 days ago
They’d never do that, as it would severely limit their userbase.Throwing out a couple games, especially when it’s ultra-niche stuff like “futanari incest” games, is the much easier and more sensible move for Valve.
Buffalobuffalo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Eww futanari incest? Get me back to shooting people in the head like a good christian.