Bring Back Bitcoin

[Monsterbitar]

Some years back it was possible to pay with Bitcoin here on steam, and I loved it. Then came the 2017 bubble, the sad fee market, unstable confirmation times and steam removed this support because it was a customer support nightmare.

I'm sorry steam had to live through that, but I want steam to support Cryptocurrencies again, specifically Bitcoin Cash (BCH), since it has been upgraded specifically to resolve the issues that Bitcoin had back then.

If steam still feels burnt by the experience, I suggest re-adding it for a single service at first: topping up the steam wallet. This would mean that if a user has a problem with a game or wants a refund for something they bought, steam can just refund back to the steam wallet.

A final note, I was recommended to post this here by the steam support when making an inquiry about it, so we know they are not 100% against it - and that means it's a good idea to make a show of hands:

How many of you here would pay with cryptocurrencies if steam supported that?

EDIT: removed poor wording (on behalf of)

[Gwarsbane]

Steam support tells everyone who send them anything that even smells slightly of a suggestion to post here, it was to get rid of you, not because they are for it in any way.

Steam support is ONLY for billing and account issues. They don't take suggestions.


Also pretty sure they killed off cryptocurrencies because it was costing them more in fees then they were making from it.

If you want to use it, then go convert it yourself, you pay all the fees associated with it yourself.

No I don't think they should use the made up money, its too volatile, it can go up and down so fast they could lose a lot of money if they try to get the cash at the wrong time.

[Monsterbitar]

Yes, they absolutely shut it down back in 2017 because it was uneconomical, probably on multiple levels (like reputational costs from incurring bad customer experience etc).

But that is not where we are today, and accepting via a payment processor means they won't need to hold and use it themselves, they get USD/EUR/Whatever into their bank accounts as usual and just get more customers and customers who are willing to spend more.

Also, sad to hear that you think the referral here was solely to get rid of me. I chose to believe otherwise and that they're actually interested but that it was outside the scope of the support question.

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by Roze:

Yes, they absolutely shut it down back in 2017 because it was uneconomical, probably on multiple levels (like reputational costs from incurring bad customer experience etc).

But that is not where we are today, and accepting via a payment processor means they won't need to hold and use it themselves, they get USD/EUR/Whatever into their bank accounts as usual and just get more customers and customers who are willing to spend more.

Also, sad to hear that you think the referral here was solely to get rid of me. I chose to believe otherwise and that they're actually interested but that it was outside the scope of the support question.

I'm just telling you what they do. Seriously, copy part of what they sent you telling you to post here and search for it... you will literally find hundreds of threads with exactly the same wording. Its a script they use and thats just the people that copies and pasted the message to show that "Valve thinks their idea is good and told them to post it here"

[Aachen]

Yeah, I doubt you’re posting on behalf of Support. They don’t need users to act as proxies or intermediaries to communicate with other departments of Valve.

[Zekiran]

Bitcoin is still around somehow.

No one cares, tho. It is not a viable currency. It is not a 'hard' currency, and never will be. Your investments of the past are worthless, because there's no basis for the currency in the world. Sorry, dude.

And yes what's been told to you is true regardless of what you 'choose' to believe: Support will tell you to 'go post on the forum' when they absolutely cannot nor would not be able to do anything for you.

[Monsterbitar]

@aachen, you're right, that was poorly worded of me. I didn't mean to say that I was talking **for** them, as much as I was talking because they encouraged me to.

[Monsterbitar]

@Zekiran, As someone who gets their income exclusively in Bitcoin Cash, has no bank account and uses it for payment on a regular basis, I can only say that my experience differs a lot from yours.

The reason I sent a request to support is because I'd like to get me a valve index VR setup, and my budget is about to have room for that cost, but only if I can pay with the money I actually have.

[arthell]

I'd definitely use it again if BCH were added. I've bought a few keys with it already outside of Steam so my needs are covered regardless, but having it integrated would make it easier.

The crypto world of today is also nothing like it was in 2017 when Bitcoin face-planted itself into stupidly-high fees. BCH, and others, has moved on to solve many of those problems.

[Zekiran]

If you want to buy a real product you'll need to use actual money, then.

[Gwarsbane]

We really wish they would stop telling people to post here when their "ideas" will never happen. It gives them false hope, and some people get a big ego thinking that Valve agrees with them so everyone else is wrong.


From 3 years ago... it has not stabilized and transaction fees are still expensive.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16743220/valve-steam-bitcoin-game-store-payment-method-crypto-volatility

Steam News Announcement    Dec 6, 2017

Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin 

As of today, Steam will no longer support Bitcoin as a payment method on our platform due to high fees and volatility in the value of Bitcoin.

https://www.google.ca/search?ei=CtXZXqPeL8CsytMPj6egYA&q=bitcoin+transaction+fee

If a game is 5 dollars, Valve gets 30% of that, which is $1.5. If the transaction fees are at or above that they make nothing and it costs them to sell the game. Basically the transaction fee needs to be pretty low, like 10 to 20 cents low.


https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-transaction-fees-are-up-800-in-one-month

From April 11 until May 14, Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fees increased by more than 1,250% from $0.38 to $5.16. While Bitcoin transaction fees have since fallen by 33.3% to sit at roughly $3.44 as of this writing, fees have increased by 36.5% since the block reward halving on May 11.May 17, 2020

Normal banking, the transaction fees are the same all the time, they don't go up and down because something happened. Normal banking fees are low.

Again as I have said its too volatile to be worth it to them.

[Monsterbitar]

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

From 3 years ago... it has not stabilized and transaction fees are still expensive.

Well, you're right that for Bitcoin (BTC) the issues are still there. I'm not asking them to support Bitcoin (BTC) specifically though, but to support Bitcoin Cash (BCH) specifically - as that fork of bitcoin actually scaled up and made a clear roadmap to support payments as the use case, rather than speculation.

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

If a game is 5 dollars, Valve gets 30% of that, which is $1.5. If the transaction fees are at or above that they make nothing and it costs them to sell the game. Basically the transaction fee needs to be pretty low, like 10 to 20 cents low.

The math is sound, but the fees on Bitcoin Cash is consistently around 1c, and with a payment processor (like how they used bitpay before), they wouldn't be incurring those fees.

[jaymo]

I would love to see Steam add Bitcoin Cash support. I'm stingy when it comes to buying games, but I'm not stingy when it comes to supporting businesses that accept peer to peer electronic cash =)

The whole fee event in 2017 was an unfortunate political event. Bitcoin (now Bitcoin Cash) works exceptionally well as a digital currency as long as you don't purposefully limit the transaction throughput to impose an intentional "fee market". (That's what happened with BTC, and that was NOT the original design.)

Steam could even accept BCH and several other cryptocurrencies via BitPay to get fiat currency deposited straight to their bank account, and STILL pay 1/4 as much in fees as they would accepting credit cards/paypal/etc.

[CombatWombat]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Bitcoin is still around somehow.

No one cares, tho. It is not a viable currency. It is not a 'hard' currency, and never will be. Your investments of the past are worthless, because there's no basis for the currency in the world. Sorry, dude.

And yes what's been told to you is true regardless of what you 'choose' to believe: Support will tell you to 'go post on the forum' when they absolutely cannot nor would not be able to do anything for you.

Bitcoin cash rocks though. Would be an absolute blast to use it with Steam.

[Sadpan]

+1, if transaction fees aren't outrageous.

[tcool]

I would love to see Steam support Bitcoin Cash again.