Hope to see some crypto-only game platform like Steam or Itch soon.
Hi! I'm from Argentina. In my country, when buying games or digital services on platforms like Steam, we have to pay around 70–76% in taxes on top of the original price.
It started at around 35% a few years ago and kept increasing gradually.
Because of this, many people started using crypto as a workaround.
For example, we buy Bitcoin or other crypto and use services like Bitrefill, Coinsbee, or Eneba to buy Steam gift cards. Then we redeem those cards to add balance and purchase games, avoiding the use of credit cards (and the extra taxes).
Just wanted to share this as it might be useful to others facing similar issues.
Crypto (BTC, ETH, and UDST) are not the solution, it is less private than a credit card as everyone can view the buyer and seller on a Blockchain. Additionally, they can ban the exchanges associated with you the same way visa/mastercard does. Coinbase accounts got banned that way.
Only monero is truly private, but it is difficult to exchange currency with it.
Lets say I trade some crypto on a platform like Coinbase or Binance, then I send it to my personal wallet. And from my personal wallet I buy games. Now how do you prove that transaction that is going from exchange to my personal wallet, is in fact transaction to my personal wallet and not just another P2P transaction to some other person who gave me cash IRL in exchange?
Sorry for the wall of text.
Not precisely, the same wallet (like Moon, ledger, etc. for example) can generate several public addresses from the same private address, and you (as the owner) can automatically access all of them like one same 'account'.
Also, while it's true the blockchain is open, there is no personal data associate with any address. Nobody can know the address bc165ert783eres43etcetc is associate with Name Lastname. You can try track it, right, but is not infallible. If you send x amount from address 1 to address 2 how do you know address 2 is the same owner of adress1, the bakery or a church's bingo?
'Additionally, they can ban the exchanges associated with you the same way Visa/Mastercard does.' <- That is true, but how can they prove you are buying porn, donating to Ukraine, paying a VPN, just saving or sending money to your cousin? You can't just simply shut down an exchange 'just in case'. Also, while not completely safe, there are P2P exchanges (while you have to be careful here like any p2p market, is not shady and stuff).
I don't understand the difference between monero and bitcoin. Can you explain? or link to a place to learn? (and just don't reply google please.)
Also, i think the issue is not about the legality but more like a forced moral. (I may be wrong, so please tell me if i am) The deal looks more like. 'Collective shout' wants to censor adult stuff (opening the door to censoring more things in the future from other parties) -> Mess with Visa/Mastercard -> Visa/Mastercard mess with itch.io, Steam and all of the users.
Yes and no. Blockchains are all publicly visible. Everything that happens on them is public knowledge. Rather than anonymous, though, they are psuedo-nonumous. That is to say, any knowledge of somebody’s identify is contextual. If you can confirm, with certainty. that somebody owns a given wallet address you can then start tracing what they’re doing. For example, you can know who somebody is based on them publicly posting about owning a given NFT. That contextual information ties them to the wallet and all the transactions attached to it and now everything you do on the blockchain is, effectively, public knowledge unlike with traditional finance where there are strict laws in place to (mostly) protect your privacy. While not perfect they do (mostly) work.
Source for that last bit is that I used to be a software developer for a major financial institution in my country and had to deal with privacy matters from time to time.
Edit: spelling mistakes
.> If you can confirm, with certainty. that somebody owns a given wallet address you can then start tracing what they’re doing.
With Hierarchical Deterministic wallets that seem to be golden standard nowadays, I don't think you can trace a lot. Because new wallet addresses are generated automatically for every transaction. Imagine proving "with certainty" that every single one of those addresses belong to certain person or company.
Crypto will never be a viable alternative because there is simply no practical use for them currently, and in countries like Egypt; it’s impossible to resell or even buy crypto.
It’s so frustrating to see people (especially tech bros) constantly glaze over a piece of tech that simply is not accessible for a good chunk of the world, and can introduce risks to people’s lives for simply owning it.
Unless someone out there is ready to create an entirely new payment processor that can function in countries like Egypt, that also have a workaround for people there to own and use crypto, crypto will simply never be a viable alternative for a lot of people.
'If it's possible to send money from card to another card, then it is absolutely possible to buy crypto.' <- it would be impossible to buy anything in that scenario. You can switch to cash but you will be limited in safety (or keeping the money safe) and online transfers. And games will be least of your worries/interests.
'It's called P2P on most platforms.' <- Peer to Peer (P2P) for short is a method where you buy or sell the item (in this case a cryptocurrency) from another person without mid-parties. In those sites you contact a seller, if is available start a chat with him/her, pay via bank transfer/paypal/face to face with cash/etc, send the proof of payment and the other part transfers the coins to your wallet.
> it would be impossible to buy anything in that scenario.
What do you mean? If it's possible in Egypt to send money from your card to another card, you can just register on any crypto exchange, go to P2P, find a seller and place an order. Then you go and send money from your card to their card and receive crypto from them on platform. If seller is in Egypt and there are issues with crypto there, then seller might get into some legal argument needing to explain why he got this money and if they're going to pay taxes, but I don't see any trouble for sender. There might be a way to sidestep this by saying it's a donation or present though if buyer and seller communicate this beforehand. Also, I think card to card transactions aren't limited to the same country or even currency? Maybe you can simply find a P2P seller of crypto for USD for example and send egyptian currency to their USD card, it will get automatically converted in-between. There most likely are limits for volume of foreign trasfers from card to card per month, but that's about it. Am I wrong with any of this?
'Crypto will never be a viable alternative because there is simply no practical use for them' <- Bitrefill, coinsbee, eneba. Also there are stores and P2P markets similar to ebay that use payment in cryptocurrencies are not bit companies like amazon but exists. Another practical use is for savings. (if you are from a country with too much inflation or hyperinflation of course). I made donations to come back alive an ONG that works in Ukraine and pay with bitcoin. Also i pay my VPN with it too.
'and in countries like Egypt; it’s impossible to resell or even buy crypto.' <- Care to explain?
'It’s so frustrating to see people (especially tech bros) constantly glaze over a piece of tech' <- Chill man, we are just talking here, imagining solutions, not censoring anybody.
'simply is not accessible for a good chunk of the world' <- You can buy bitcoin in practically any place. Even Africans have bitcoin and use to buy stuff. Either acquiring via exchange or a P2P market or just working. Is not mainstream right, but not too niche or nonexistent.
'and can introduce risks to people’s lives for simply owning it.' <- what risks?
'Unless someone out there is ready to create an entirely new payment processor that can function in countries like Egypt' <- you can't set up something like that in a month or less than a year. Anybody can dream a new solution but sadly in this circumstance Bitcoin (or crypto) is probably the only existent alternative. (I don't think itch.io would deploy a crypto payment method anyway.) If you know any valid alternative to propose you can share it.
i mean, you can't threaten a store to use a term of service that wasn't made for them, if you included crypto, it might suck for others, but any attack against the visa/master card monopoly would be worth it, they need to know people aren't just going to comply because a random ass org from Australia told them to
in another threats are already asking for alternatives to itch. and i found this. https://isotopic.io/game-store/
I think it also use some kind of crypto payment.
We're building https://altgames.io/, an alternative game marketplace for people who have been affected by the recent censorship. Feel free to send me a DM if you're interested, I'd love to chat.
blocking regions that require age verification will get more and more tricky. It's coming to the entire eu next and it looks like the US is considering doing it. I'm already in a country that just introduced it so obviously I've got a vested interest. It'll probably come to most of the world as one nation copies another when they realise what's possible
I agree it's going to get tricky. I'm also in a region that enforces age verification, so I'll have to use a VPN to access my own platform!
It's a difficult trade off between privacy and ease of access. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to use the platform, but I don't feel right about being complicit in asking users to upload a photo of their ID to a private company somewhere in the US.
Blocking regions that require it definitely isn't the final solution, and it's something I'll continue to search for a better solution to that doesn't compromise on privacy. But at least for now, it's looking like using a VPN is the safest bet.
The big issue to me is that the payment processors have proven they're willing to pressure websites into censoring content that they deem 'too risky', and the sites that rely on them are basically forced to comply – so it's not only about what they do and don't allow now, but what they might decide is too risky in the future, e.g. games with LGBTQ+ content, or horror games.
Regarding the rules in the 'we can't allow' section, this is always something that I'm open to discussing. Is there anything in particular from that list that you think is overbearing or unreasonable?