I asked gemini to find it…

Apparently it was in 2 simultaneous interview-publications, by different sites…

don’t know why I’ve got memory of it being video, instead of text, but here’s the answer I got:

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While Gabe Newell definitely made those blunt remarks, you are actually remembering a text-based print interview rather than a video clip.

In late February 2022, during the media press tour for the launch of the Steam Deck, Gabe Newell did a series of one-on-one interviews where he addressed Valve’s ban on NFTs and why they stopped accepting Bitcoin back in 2017.

The specific quote you are thinking of comes from two parallel interviews published on the same day:

1. The Interview with PC Gamer

When discussing the nightmare of accepting Bitcoin on Steam, Newell focused heavily on the sheer volume of bad actors:

"The problem is that a lot of the actors who are in that space are not people you want interacting with your customers. We had problems when we started accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option. 50 per cent of those transactions were fraudulent, which is a mind-boggling number. These were customers we didn’t want to have."

2. The Interview with Rock Paper Shotgun

In a companion interview published simultaneously, he used almost the exact phrasing from your memory when talking about the NFT and blockchain crowd:

"The people in the space, though, tend to be involved in a lot of criminal activity and a lot of sketchy behaviours… With the actors that are currently in this NFT space, they’re just not people you really are wanting to be doing business with."

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Why is there no video?

Because these outlets sat down with Gabe in private press rooms to gather quotes for written feature articles, no official video or audio of these specific exchanges was broadcast.

If you remember seeing or hearing it, you likely watched a video from a gaming news channel (like YongYea, Inside Gaming, or IGN) or a TikTok/YouTube Short where a narrator read Gabe’s text quotes out loud over gameplay footage or B-roll of Newell.

He didn’t hold back, but he did it via the power of the written word!

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So, now you’ve got both explicit-quotes, AND 2 independent sources-for-that-interview.

I hope that’s good-enough.

I’m not digging into it any more.

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