Accept Nano (crypto) as a feeless payment option

[Meides]

I'd like to suggest to add Nano, a crypto, as a payment option for Steam. My reasons for this:

1. It's a feeless crypto. The cost savings for Steam, even after using a crypto exchange to convert to USD, would be literally millions. Keep some for Steam, and pass some on to us in cheaper prices, we're all happy.
   
2. It's an instant crypto. I know Bitcoin was accepted before, but that had issues because the price would literally change between sending Bitcoin and it arriving minutes if not hours later. Nano takes literally 0.2 seconds to fully settle, and can be instantly exchanged into dollars.
   
3. It's great for the environment. Nano is extremely energy efficient, the whole network could run on the power output of a single wind turbine.
   
4. It makes it fantastically easy to purchase from anywhere in the world. When I'm abroad it's surprisingly difficult to pay for stuff on Steam. Nano knows no borders, so it seems perfect for this.
   
5. It's 100% secure. PayPal sometimes gives trouble, payment processors go offline and such. Nano has been online for over 5 years, over 70 million transactions done, with not a single missed transaction.

Implementing it shouldn't be hard, a lot of services/exchanges/businesses have done so already. If there are any difficulties, I'm sure the Nano Foundation would love to help out: https://nano.org/connect.

Thanks for considering this suggestion.

[Radene]

ReeverM の投稿を引用：

Radene の投稿を引用：

Please. The moment it becomes mainstream they'll become fiat. "Blockchain" is just a fancy word, not a silver bullet.

Investopedia の投稿を引用：

Fiat money is government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver, but rather by the government that issued it.

Something like Bitcoin or Nano are not, by definition, fiat money. They cannot become fiat money.

Yes they can, and they will. If not before, at the time when crypto corporates become the de facto government.

You're creating a monster.

[Dude Time]

The reason why there's a short supply of GPUs is because of the scalpers and miners. The miners DESPISE nano because it cannot be mined. I support anything that angers them.

[Meides]

cinedine の投稿を引用：

Also so far there has been no point brought up why Steam could profit from it? You want a way for your friends to use money you transfer to them? Buy a digital gift card. No fees involved at all. Else why should Valve eat a fee no matter how small just so you don't have to while converting it to fiat? apparently it's quick and easy to do so.

Steam would profit from it because while the digital gift cards have costs/fees associated with them, Nano is entirely feeless. In other words, it saves them on costs.

Yes they can, and they will. If not before, at the time when crypto corporates become the de facto government.

Not sure what you mean here, but the whole idea behind many crypto, including Nano, is that the government can never print any extra. That won't change if a government "adopts" it. Can I ask what you mean with it becoming fiat?

Glad I managed to get my GPU before the miners completely gobbled up the supply.

Yeah, I think many gamers are (rightfully) pissed at cryptos like Ethereum and such that use mostly GPUs to mine. Just in case it wasn't clear, Nano doesn't use mining to compete over transactions. GPUs don't matter to it. Miners actually quite hate Nano, because it goes to show that you can have cryptocurrency just fine without the ridiculous mining.

[Max]

Yes. Can't think of any crypto better as a payment. NANO is amazingly fast, I tried it myself. Mineable coins are obviously not sustainable.

[Otonashi]

There is every reason to support cryptocurrencies that don't use mining. If non-mineable cryptocurrencies gain more popularity, usability and value, mineable cryptocurrencies will become obsolete -- institutions will stop investing in them in favour of non-mineable cryptocurrencies, making their value fall. When that happens, miners will stop buying up GPUs and NVIDIA can stop making useless crypto mining cards. Miners will throw away their mining rigs which are now no longer profitable to maintain.

Ignoring crypto isn't going to make the "crypto corporate" decide to dump all their Bitcoin and Ethereum. Only be embracing options like NANO can we force them away from mineables. By ignoring greener, better alternatives, we're actively allowing mining to continue.

[ixron]

I think this is a great suggestion. It was nice that Steam had bitcoin as an option for payment and I would love to see Nano take that place.

[Radene]

Senatus の投稿を引用：

Yes they can, and they will. If not before, at the time when crypto corporates become the de facto government.

Not sure what you mean here, but the whole idea behind many crypto, including Nano, is that the government can never print any extra. That won't change if a government "adopts" it. Can I ask what you mean with it becoming fiat?

Exactly what I said - someone's going to figure out how to create more currency out of thin air the moment they think they'll profit from it more than from it being a gold standard. It has happened before. The "Crypto" prefix does not magically change the perception of the concept of "currency".

Ah well. Guess we will have crypto-loans and crypto-mortgages, and crypto-central banks in the future.

And I still haven't stopped laughing at the "It's green!" claims, either. No it's not. This entire thread is nothing more than one big advertisement drive.

[nullable]

ReeverM の投稿を引用：

Snakub Plissken の投稿を引用：

Is that why Steam dropped Bitcoin? It's too slow? And expensive? Those are the only reasons? Or is that just an argument of convenience that makes Nano sound more attractive in your mind and obviously worth looking at since it addresses "all" the previous issues?

As you'll see in the linked post, yes :happy_creep:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1464096684955433613

Erm, no. They spend a lot of time talking about volatility and customer service issues. So slow and expensive aren't the only reasons are they? I mean you can try to interpret that announcement and say "slow and expensive" completely encompasses volatility and customer service issues. But I don't agree with that completely. They're heavily intertwined, but not exclusively.

And I think this announcements focuses on the customer side of the issue. But doesn't address the business side, because that's none of our business. I very much doubt this announcement represents a comprehensive list of issues and a complete inventory of end of support.

After all there were plenty of other cryptos in 2017. Why not switch to the next one? Nano existed in 2017. Why didn't they adopt it then? That's kinda my point. There's a bit more to the picture than the announcement reveals. Bitcoin was a bust, other cryptos aren't a panacea.

So when people want to oversimplify things, or dismiss or ignore criticisms of crypto-currency. That's fine. It doesn't actually solve the real world issues, or address the chaos. Bitcoin was an experiment. There's probably a future for crypto. But right now it's still chaos. The consequence to that is there's no amount of optimism that can and favorable appraisals that can negate that.

And I'll take Valve's lack of support for crypto and no immediate announcement of implementation as implicit agreement. I also trust that when things normalize sufficiently and the wild west days have past that's when you'll see crypto gaining the utility users actually want out of it.

Is that gonna happen in 2021? I wouldn't hold my breath.

[CapoFantasma97]

Cryptocurrencies would work... if they actually had any backing from countries.

Currently, they're "private currencies" that work as middlemen and are extremely volatile and inconsistent. While any real world economy isn't fixed and conventional currencies do have fluctuations in value, they do not jump as crazily up and down as Nano, Bitcoin and others do.

How can you trust a currency that back in november was valued 0.90€, spiked up to 6€ last sunday, and now it's back at 4.41€?

Might as well accept payment in capital stocks. Those are at least much more reliable and commonly accepted.


EDIT: lol I just noticed you guys posted an article from Steam mentioning just that, about removing Bitcoin from payment systems

[Pocahawtness]

Snakub Plissken の投稿を引用：

The wild swings in price are still really attractive to most businesses.

This. Crypto-currencies are too volatile because they have no real worth.

[ReeverM]

Radene の投稿を引用：

Exactly what I said - someone's going to figure out how to create more currency out of thin air the moment they think they'll profit from it more than from it being a gold standard. It has happened before.

And I still haven't stopped laughing at the "It's green!" claims, either. No it's not. This entire thread is nothing more than one big advertisement drive.

I'm not sure how you're expecting people to be able to "create more bitcoin" (or Nano) out of thin air if you have ever looked into how the currencies work. A lot of time is spent discussing this. At the very least, you would need at least 51% of the mining power (for bitcoin) or 51% of the total "staked" supply (to simplify it) for Nano in order to do anything that goes against the network (like reversing transactions or double spending). For Nano, this would only be a couple hundred million dollars to control the network, but this is still incredibly unlikely and only gets harder to pull off the larger the market cap grows.

As for "not being green" I don't know what you're talking about. In comparison to any other crypto, as far as I've seen/heard, it most certainly is. But please do enlighten me on your side of things! I'm sure you've looked into it by now to back up such a claim.

[Radene]

ReeverM の投稿を引用：

Radene の投稿を引用：

Exactly what I said - someone's going to figure out how to create more currency out of thin air the moment they think they'll profit from it more than from it being a gold standard. It has happened before.

And I still haven't stopped laughing at the "It's green!" claims, either. No it's not. This entire thread is nothing more than one big advertisement drive.

I'm not sure how you're expecting people to be able to "create more bitcoin" (or Nano) out of thin air if you have ever looked into how the currencies work. A lot of time is spent discussing this. At the very least, you would need at least 51% of the mining power (for bitcoin) or 51% of the total "staked" supply (to simplify it) for Nano in order to do anything that goes against the network (like reversing transactions or double spending). For Nano, this would only be a couple hundred million dollars to control the network, but this is still incredibly unlikely and only gets harder to pull off the larger the market cap grows.

Oh, that level of consolidation will happen. Or are you seriously thinking that crypto is immune to oligarch cronyism?

As for "not being green" I don't know what you're talking about. In comparison to any other crypto, as far as I've seen/heard, it most certainly is. But please do enlighten me on your side of things! I'm sure you've looked into it by now to back up such a claim.

That's already been done, I believe cine has addressed it.

[ReeverM]

Radene の投稿を引用：

That's already been done, I believe cine has addressed it.

If you're talking about where they say "servers use energy", I sincerely hope you're joking because that literally isn't worth me going into. If that's your argument for why Nano is not significantly greener than alternative cryptos, I'm done here. I've tried being patient and explaining things, I'm happy to help genuine confusion or take legitimate criticism, but saying "servers use electricity" or "servers emit heat" is quite possibly the dumbest argument I've seen against anything, ever.

Obviously there's energy wasted, that's just how technology works. The point is that it uses orders of magnitude less energy than comparable solutions. Being able to theoretically run a 7,000 TPS decentralized payment network on a single wind turbine is super green. Green =/= not using any energy.

If this is seriously the hill you're willing to die on, I'm sorry, but I can't help anymore.

[Radene]

ReeverM の投稿を引用：

Radene の投稿を引用：

That's already been done, I believe cine has addressed it.

If you're talking about where they say "servers use energy", I sincerely hope you're joking because that literally isn't worth me going into. If that's your argument for why Nano is not significantly greener than alternative cryptos, I'm done here. I've tried being patient and explaining things, I'm happy to help genuine confusion or take legitimate criticism, but saying "servers use electricity" or "servers emit heat" is quite possibly the dumbest argument I've seen against anything, ever.

Obviously there's energy wasted, that's just how technology works. The point is that it uses orders of magnitude less energy than comparable solutions. Being able to theoretically run a 7,000 TPS decentralized payment network on a single wind turbine is super green. Green =/= not using any energy.

If this is seriously the hill you're willing to die on, I'm sorry, but I can't help anymore.

No, please write an even longer essay on why you're not going to bother to respond to me. I can't wait.

[Meides]

Radene の投稿を引用：

Exactly what I said - someone's going to figure out how to create more currency out of thin air the moment they think they'll profit from it more than from it being a gold standard. It has happened before. The "Crypto" prefix does not magically change the perception of the concept of "currency".

I genuinely just do not understand what you see happening here. Crypto was started to get away from random increases in money supply - you literally can not inflate the supply of Nano. Everything is recorded on the blockchain, I cannot just pretend to have more Nano and have the rest agree.

With gold, there was the issue that it was hard to actually use gold, since you don't want to be lugging it around, hence people started depositing it in banks and got "claims" on it from the bank that were then traded. That way yes, the bank can issue more claims on the amount of gold it actually holds. Nano doesn't have this problem, and everything is recorded on the blockchain. If a bank has 100 Nano in deposits, they simply cannot send out more than 100 Nano to anyone for a loan.

Dude Time の投稿を引用：

The reason why there's a short supply of GPUs is because of the scalpers and miners. The miners DESPISE nano because it cannot be mined. I support anything that angers them.

Thanks, and I agree. Using GPUs for mining is a massive waste. Leave the graphics cards for the gamers, imo.

Erm, no. They spend a lot of time talking about volatility and customer service issues. So slow and expensive aren't the only reasons are they? I mean you can try to interpret that announcement and say "slow and expensive" completely encompasses volatility and customer service issues. But I don't agree with that completely. They're heavily intertwined, but not exclusively.

Those are the reasons Steam stated, though. And it makes sense, because there aren't really many other issues in accepting it. If there are, I'd love to hear from them obviously.

After all there were plenty of other cryptos in 2017. Why not switch to the next one? Nano existed in 2017. Why didn't they adopt it then? That's kinda my point. There's a bit more to the picture than the announcement reveals. Bitcoin was a bust, other cryptos aren't a panacea.

Well, back then Nano wasn't actually instant, nor was it possible to exchange it into fiat currencies instantly. The space has developed over the past years, so these things are possible now.

So when people want to oversimplify things, or dismiss or ignore criticisms of crypto-currency. That's fine. It doesn't actually solve the real world issues, or address the chaos. Bitcoin was an experiment. There's probably a future for crypto. But right now it's still chaos. The consequence to that is there's no amount of optimism that can and favorable appraisals that can negate that.

Thing is though, what we are saying is that it does solve real world issues. If you are a merchant/company losing 1-3% on fees and you are shown an option that is feeless, or about 0.1% fees when you take into account exchanging into fiat on an exchange - that is definitely a real world issue that's being solved for you. MasterCard, Visa and Paypal make literally billions of dollars a year in profits on these fees. Whatever can help take away this middleman for companies is fantastic for the companies and for the customers, it lowers costs.

Cryptocurrencies would work... if they actually had any backing from countries.

Currently, they're "private currencies" that work as middlemen and are extremely volatile and inconsistent. While any real world economy isn't fixed and conventional currencies do have fluctuations in value, they do not jump as crazily up and down as Nano, Bitcoin and others do.

How can you trust a currency that back in november was valued 0.90€, spiked up to 6€ last sunday, and now it's back at 4.41€?

Might as well accept payment in capital stocks. Those are at least much more reliable and commonly accepted.

Thanks! I'd love to get into a deeper discussion about the value of cryptocurrencies as a whole, but I think this might not be the right place for it haha. However, the point I'm making here isn't in regards to its use as a store of value. Yes, Nano fluctuates heavily, and will likely continue to do so for the near future, as will all cryptos. What I'm describing here is that because this volatility happens over minutes, hours, day and weeks rather than in the course of seconds, it would be profitable for Steam and for us as users to accept payment in Nano and IMMEDIATELY exchange that into dollars. It's effectively for no other reason than having a lower cost payment option.

This. Crypto-currencies are too volatile because they have no real worth.

Again would love to discuss with you on this, as it really goes to the core of why interest in crypto is increasing so much lately, but for the purposes of this suggestion it genuinely doesn't matter.

That's already been done, I believe cine has addressed it.

The way I see it, something can use energy/have emissions and still be green. Solar power does not have 0 CO2 emissions, yet I'd call it green. Wind power - same reasoning. I'd arguably call a Tesla green, because it's more sustainable than most transport is. Moving from eating meat to eating vegan can be seen as green, even if you don't eliminate all emissions.

That's our point with Nano being green. Does it still use energy? Of course it does. Literally handing over cash to someone uses energy. But it uses far less energy than the alternatives.

To try to put this volatility issue to bed once and for all - when I was paying back my Australian friend I was repaying him for an X amount of money that he was spending. He was spending the money at 9:00 PM, and it came down to about 500 euro from me that he was spending. I sent him the Nano equivalent of 500 euro at 9:00 right when he paid, he immediately sent that to his exchange, and exchanged it into AUD. The price didn't change. Obviously had we done it differently and had I exchanged 500 euro into Nano, then sent it to him a day later, the price might have fluctuated in the meantime.

So my point with the volatility is that while no one would deny that crypto is a volatile asset class, and that Nano so far is volatile relative to dollars and euros, it's not volatile on a literal sub-second basis.

Also to all those I didn't quote but said they thought it's a great idea, thanks! Nice to hear that because I genuinely think this would be fantastic to have.