One of you who has the smarts: make it happen please. You can make some money from it I think. I'm willing to pay per transaction if it means I bypass evil. I know making a payment processor is not possible for a small community, but what if we use the infrastructure of crypto? It already exists, is decentralized, and stablecoins like USDC are quick to convert to real cash.
Lets talk about this.
I could understand the argument, but as long as the system collects KYC info (which all legally operating payment processors outside of a few countries, already do) it is legal. And using stablecoins instead of volatile coins like XMR, BTC, etc. eliminates the possibility of extreme value fluctuation (and therefore wildly changing prices).
I don't know, you are probably right, but I can't wrap my head around exactly why. Even volatile coins like bitcoin have storefronts accepting it now. I don't know, but it sounds like a decentralized currency is the most efficient way to handle payment processing without actually needed a dedicated processing entity. If it's on a blockchain that already exists, wouldn't the processing be handled by the blockchain the coin exists on?
Like I said, I'm sure there are plenty of reasons this hasn't been implemented yet, stuff way more complicated than I am considering, I'm just some lowly non-cypto dev, I could easily be wrong about everything. Seems too logical to actually be this simple.
-EDIT-
My biggest personal argument against crypto is privacy issues. How payments would be obfuscated would need to be really good in order to ensure tracking wallets doesn't happen. Tracking bitcoin movement is extremely easy if you have the wallet address of anyone who receives payment (e.g. the storefront itself), and then you can see payments received by the storefront, amounts, wallet addresses of people who sent payment. I could see privacy concerns being a huge issue, atleast with bitcoin. I hear Monero is much better as far as privacy goes, but I don't know enough about it to confirm.
No, you are not wrong. I just oversimplify one of the main issues. I was refering to the bad image crypto has to the average person (scams, inestability, ponzis, etc). I read on some other posts people saying things like: 'if x stores switch to crypto, even if opctional, then i will not use that store anymore' So i think many stores won't switch to crypto (at least until they don't have other choice) because that.
But i am agree with you (i'm also a lowly non-cypto dev, so, high five¡ :-) ) I also think a descentralized cryptocurrency is the most viable way in the long run, and yes, there are a few stores that accept payments in criptocurrency. Probably with the time there will be more. Time will tell.
Leafo has specifically said he won't touch crypto, so it'll never happen on Itch. Offsite, the problem is on and off ramping. In order to do anything in a stablecoin, you have to be able to buy and sell that coin. TPTB are terrified of the things that could be done with a currency that isn't COMPLETELY locked down and surveilled at all times, at all layers, so the KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements you have to jump through to buy or sell are incredibly invasive compared to Paypal, a bank account, or setting up a credit card. Basically all the same stuff people in the UK are being forced to do now if they want to prove they're an adult to look at porn. Most people, rightly, aren't willing to trust such sensitive info to some random exchange (or even Paypal, given their history), and even if they were it's a huge pain in the ass to go through everything. The tech has come a long way: some of the chains are instant or near instant now for transactions, and stablecoins do solve the constant value bounce issue that made most crypto worthless as anything other than a speculation asset. But if people can't GET the stuff and merchants can't get rid of it, it doesn't really matter. The barrier to entry is still way, way too high, and even that aside, crypto has accumulated a mountain of a bad rep over the past decade that will be extremely difficult to reverse.
I don't know how things work i other countries, but where i am from you have a limit of how much oney you can send to your bank account/paypal/etc withouy having to explain where it came from. (And it's a huge limit, highter than the average salary). And about KYC, there are P2P markets that don't requiere KYC, they may be be a bit risky, but is not like you are going to be scammed 100% of the times.
what do you mean the entry barrier is too hight?
The barrier to entry to use a CC is: I take out my CC, enter the information, and buy the game. The barrier to entry for Paypal is: I enter a username and password, click a few times, and buy the game. Yes, I had to do a few things at some point in the past to set both of those things up, but they were fairly simple, straightforward, and involved well-known, trusted institutions everyone uses. If my bank wants to see my ID, sure, fine. If some online service I've never heard of wants to see my ID, fuck off. I imagine most people are the same.
The barrier for entry NEEDS to be that I go to a site, put in traditional payment info, and get crypto in my wallet (even setting up and maintaining a wallet is a lot to ask of most people, but doable). But this will never ever happen in the US because of the potential for you-know-what. P2P markets are a non-starter. No one is going to drive out and meet someone IRL to buy crypto, and if you do it online you have to use some kind of traditional payment processor, which means you're either right back to KYC or you're violating their TOS in some tricky way that will eventually be shut down.
IDK how is in your country. But in mine buying cryptocurrencies like bitcoin is as easy as using paypal or a bank. Yes, there are services with KYC but my personal experience is basically. Open an acount -> validate with ID and Photo of my face -> transfer FIAT (official currency like USD, EUR, YEN, etc.) to add funds -> then buy the cripto i want -> Optional but recomended, transfer the coins out of the exchange and into a personal wallet (moon, wallet of satoshis, or the one in brave browser, idk).
I have also bought using P2P online, and in my country there are margins or limits of how much money you can add into a bank account without having to give explanations of where it came from. I say this to explain how it is from the seller's perspective. (Im curious if that exist in other countries.)
'No one is going to drive out and meet someone IRL to buy crypto' <- As far as i know, nobody does.
I have personally bought stuff using bitcoin (steam gift cards using coinsbee) and i pay scanning a QR from my phone.
'even setting up and maintaining a wallet is a lot to ask of most people,' <- How's that? not seriously, i am curious.
I'm sure crypto will end up having restrictions as well especially if you use an exchange which is basically a bank. The only way around all restrictions would be sending physical cash by post. The the mail service will implement restrictions so we'll have to physically travel to where we want to buy and hand over cash directly. Then the landlords will implement restrictions on what's allowed to be sold so you'll have to distribute your games on a disc in a back alley.
I'm a pro-bitcoin user, but i understand that many people won't like to use bitcoin or other criptocurrency. I think (idk if it's possible or easy to do) that ich should try something like digital gift cards funfed wallets or something like that. That way both pro and anti crypto users could buy their games.
I use Bitcoin to save some money against inflation and buy stuff in internet without having to pay a s***load of taxes. (I normally buy Steam cards). So yeah, i use it for actual payments. Also, as far as i know there are stores around the world that accept payments in Bitcoin.
Also, no, Crypto, (or at least Bitcoin) is not a casino. Some people has used it that way (along to commit scams) but that is not the purpose of a cryptocurrency. Sadly the reputation is tanted due the bad use some people did.
If you buy things and no taxes are paid, that's kinda illegal.
Steam and practically every respectable business discontinued bitcoin acceptance almost a decade ago. Steam did so 2017. Even Itch once accepted coins, because one of the payment processors accepted those.
If you buy a Steam gift card with bitcoin, the transfer cost on the chain in power requirement alone is higher than the value on that gift card. Someone has to pay for that cost. It is hidden away in the supposed worth of bitcoin and that worth is a giant snowball system. Any "news" article you read about how wide spread supposed bitcoin acceptance is, is paid for by people trying to increase the bubble. Some even outright lie by claiming that Steam accepts bitcoin.
When Steam discontinued bitcoin, a transfer did cost about the equivalent of 20 bucks. When they started accepting bitcoin, it did cost about 0.2 bucks. You cannot justify paying a game for 20, if paying costs additional 20. And that was 2017. It was 200 a few years ago.
The self defeating weakness of any coin is, that if people use it, it becomes unuseable. Blockchains are a terrible system and about the worst solution for any situation. They bog down if used by too many people. And if too few people use it, you can easily hack the system.
And the irony of all this is, that the way people would use it to evade certain payment processors, is not even as a currency. It would be used as paypal with extra steps. You put money in on one side and money out on the other side. The blackbox inbetween is the magical crypto, instead of some company. Oh, and of course you typically use some companies instead of operating on the chain yourself. But in the end you still want to send the dollars and convert it to other currencies and vice versa. But you do not want to have the money in the "currency" of coins. The idea behind crypto currency was to use it as a currency. That idea went out of the window once bitcoins were picked up by stock market parasites.
We do not need crypto. We need paypal with blackjack and the other thing. Sending money from bank to bank would be viable, if not for the current cost for international transfers. That's about 20-30 bucks and not justifiyable for paying for games.
I apologyze for the wall of text and if there are inconsistencies (English is not my first languaje so i used Google translate).
If you buy things and no taxes are paid, that's kind of illegal. ← If you live in a socialist (or pseudo-socialist) country, that doesn't matter anymore. Furthermore, it's not illegal per se; it does take advantage of a legal loophole, since it's not explicitly stated that this maneuver cannot be done. But hey, the advantage of living in a third-world country is that nobody cares.
'If you buy a Steam gift card with bitcoin, the cost of the on-chain transfer, just due to the power requirement, is higher than the value of the card.' ← If you buy anything with any payment method, you have an added cost (taxes, commissions, fees, etc.). Even for physical goods, if you buy an apple at a fruit shop, you're also paying (part of) the cost of the fuel, taxes, comissions, etc. used in shipping.
'Someone has to pay that cost.' ’ ← In everything (even for things unrelated to Bitcoin), the one who pays is the final consumer. I don't know what it's called in your country; in mine, we call it a 'transfer of value.' (For this reason, tax policies on the rich never work and end up making the cost of any product or service more expensive.)
‘Any "news" article you read about the supposed acceptance of Bitcoin is funded by people trying to fuel the bubble. ’ ← I wasn't referring to newspaper articles, but to videos you can find here and there. Also, evidence of that? (Don't make me defend the press, XD)
‘When Steam discontinued Bitcoin, a transfer did cost about the ’ <- Based on your cost argument. Yes, back then, transactions became expensive since there weren't a large number of nodes (called miners) processing transactions, so the network became saturated and the transaction fee skyrocketed.
But starting in 2018, the Lighting Network was implemented, allowing transfers (of small amounts) to be made instantly and commission-free (no network fees). It's what I use today to buy Steam Gift cards, or pay my VPN.
'If people use coins, does it become useless' Uh, no, money exists precisely to be exchanged for goods and services, not through barter. If by "coins" you mean cryptocurrencies, uh, no, either. Cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin) are a currency, period. They have their own characteristics (pros and cons), but they are a currency nonetheless. Made to be exchanged for things, or to save in. Yes, there are people who use it as an investment, buying now, waiting for the price to go up, and then selling it. But that's not the purpose of cryptocurrencies. For example, in Latin America, people do the same with the US dollar; it's bought and sold as an "investment," rather than used as a currency.
Based on the disadvantages of blockchains: do they get bogged down if too many people use them? If so, the entire network would have collapsed by now (Bitcoin emerged in 2009 and had its first boom in February 2017 (based on price)). And at most, there was an increase in network fees. But that has already been fixed with the increase in nodes (miners) globally and the Lighting Network.
'And if very few people use them, the system can be easily hacked.' Huh? How? The only possible way to hack the system is by capitalizing on the largest amount of the network's computing power (the so-called 51% attack, which in turn is so expensive as to be unfeasible, plus it would motivate people to use another protocol (currency), rendering the attack useless). Plus, Bitcoin already has several "safeguards" by desing specifically to prevent hacking: "proof of work," asymmetric cryptography, decentralized consensus, etc.
Plus, if that were the case, it would have been hacked as soon as it was made public.
'And the irony of all this is that the way people would use it to evade certain payment processors isn't even as a currency. It would be used like PayPal, with extra steps.' <- PayPal is using a currency with extra steps. You deposit a balance, make the transfer, and the recipient withdraws the money.(When possible, because there are also cases where PayPal or other payment or banking entities deny withdrawals, even if they are from legitimate sources.)
I save in Bitcoin and I also make my payments directly on the network (or through LN) without resorting to an exchange. It's true that in any case, most people would use exchanges as payment processors, but at least the opportunity to leave them and use your own wallets exists. Unlike with FIAT, where you are forced to use a payment processor for electronic payments (opting out means using only cash), would you rather be chained to payment processors and forced to accept terms and conditions (some abusive) or have the ability to give them the middle finger?
‘The idea behind cryptocurrencies was to use them as currency. That idea faded when stock market parasites took over bitcoins.’ <- No? That still is. There are still many other crazy people like me who use cryptocurrencies for what they were intended for—not to get rich, but to actually be able to use our money without the government or a corporation taking it away from us.
‘We don't need cryptocurrencies. We need PayPal for blackjack and all that.’ ← Aha. And what does that imaginary system look like? Who's going to create it? How will it work? How do you ensure it remains impartial (or at least doesn't repeat the same thing as with Visa/Mastercard) in the long term? And can it be done globally? How? If the government of the country where it's based becomes corrupt, how do you prevent it from interfering with global payments? Is it a company or a payment protocol? I'm assuming it won't be a protocol, given your anti-bitcoin stance. So I assume you're talking about a company. So, who will run that company? Is it someone trustworthy? How will it be financed? How will it operate? Will it be profitable in the long term? Who will provide the initial investment? Are they trustworthy too?
I understand that many people don't like cryptocurrencies for various reasons. But treating them as if they're the worst thing that's ever happened to humanity is a bit of a stretch. It's a viable solution that exists now and can be used to prevent abuses by both governments and large corporations. I don't want to force anyone to use Bitcoin or anything else. In fact, I'm voting for Itch to do something like "Itch.io gift cards" if they can, and for everyone to buy them however they want.
Let everyone be free to choose.
Errata.
A clarification based on my first point:
It's not that I'm evading taxes per se, but rather that I'm avoiding paying the surcharge by using international payment methods. Since Bitcoin doesn't go through Visa/Mastercard or local banks, this withholding doesn't apply. Legally, it's not evasion; it's using another channel.
Legally, that's irrelevant and "using another channel" without paying taxes is still tax evasion. You buy a thing, the seller has to pay value added tax. For digital goods that's hard to track, but it still applies. If you buy pizza with your coins, that pizza joint has to pay taxes on that sale.
The involvement of a credit card company has absolutely no influence on this situation.
It goes further. You and the seller, when exchanging coins for real money might face additional taxes, if the coin changed worth.
There are many, many reaons, why coins are a terrible idea. I get the desire to have something independent. But having an alternate currency does not exempt you from laws regarding payments, taxes and all things regarding money.
Imagine paying with gold coins. Real, metal coins. Do you think the business you buy from would not have to report the sale and pay taxes on that sale, just becaue you paid with valueable metals?
But maybe there are things lost in translation. There are fees from credit card companies that are not taxes, but fees. Taxes are what the governments want. Fees are payment to the credit card company for their services. The fee for a bank to bank transfer internationally is around 20+ dollars. The fee for a bank to bank transfer inside a country is typically near 0. The fees for services like credit card companies and paypal are roughly 30 cents plus 3%.
Oh, and there are fees for a transfer inside a coin system. It's what's supposed to keep the coin alive. Those fees ain't cheap either. Fees won't go away, just because you use crypto.
1. I appreciate the respectful tone in the response. It's appreciated in any debate or exchange of opinions. :-)
2. France, no, it's a joke. But sorry for the wall of text.
3. It's not tax evasion to pay with a payment method that doesn't have taxes applied to it.
Actually, a brief clarification, since (I think) we're getting confused about the terms. Tax evasion consists of, for example, hiding income, assets, etc. from the corresponding authority to avoid paying taxes. And tax avoidance consists of using legal tricks to pay less tax. (Having everything declared before the law). The first is illegal, the second is not.
An example of evasion is if you have an unregistered job, you're paid in cash, and no one (from the government) knows that you work for that person (your employer doesn't pay taxes for you, nor pension contributions, social security, or anything). Example: A guy knocks on your door and asks if you want him to mow your lawn. You agree and pay him in cash, and only you and him know about all of this. This is illegal.
What I'm saying is closer to: State A increases taxes on importing companies, then those companies move to State B, which charges less taxes (or don't even do it at all). This is legal.
In my case, I'm not breaking the law because: A) My money comes from a registered job and is deposited into a state bank. B) I make a transfer from that bank to a registered exchange to buy Bitcoin. C) From there, I buy the Steam card from an international online store, load that balance, and buy those games (this isn't illegal).
'You and the seller might face additional taxes when exchanging coins for real money if the coin changed value.' <- Only if there's already a law requiring you to do that. In my case, there isn't.
'There are many, many reasons why coins are a terrible idea.' <- For example? Instability, the initial learning curve, the risk of losing my private keys? These are risks that I (as an individual) choose to take in pursuit of a deflationary currency that the government can't forcibly take away from me. I understand that many people don't want Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, and I don't want to convince or force anyone to use them. (Just as I wouldn't want to be forced to use a payment method or currency I'm not comfortable with.) What I believe is that, as much as possible, people should have the freedom to choose.
'But having an alternate currency does not exempt you from laws regarding payments, taxes and all things regarding money.' <- Yes, I'm not saying otherwise (I already explained it before) Bonus track: This depends on the legislation of the country you are in. If the country I am in has more lax laws regarding the use of cryptoassets, (or for example, none at all) I am not breaking any laws.
Based on the example of the pizzeria and the sale of digital products. Yes, every seller has to pay taxes. But those taxes are already included in the price you're paying. No one pays anything out of pocket. (Well, yes, the end consumer, since they don't resell it.) The price of every single thing you see, whether it's a pizzeria, a supermarket, or a digital store, already includes all the costs involved in putting that product on sale. If you buy, say, a pair of headphones, for example, the chain goes something like this: The importer buys the item -> resells it to the distributor -> the distributor travels to the store in your city (in the process, they'll spend on fuel, the cost of which is distributed among the products they resell) -> The store puts the product on sale, and then the person who buys it to use, not resell it (the end consumer) is the one who pays for the entire chain. (Every percentage of profit margin, fuel, taxes, commissions, etc., of each 'link' in the chain)
'Imagine paying with gold coins. Real, metal coins. Do you think the business you buy from wouldn't have to report the sale and pay taxes on that sale, just because you paid with valuable metals?' <- If the business accepts that payment method, chances are they're already charging me everything I explained above.
'Oh, and there are also fees for transfers within a cryptocurrency system. That's what's supposed to keep the currency alive. Those fees aren't cheap either. Fees won't disappear just by using cryptocurrency.' <- Yes, it's the transaction fee. Basically, what a 'miner' does is process groups of transactions (blocks), and if they succeed, they get paid all the fees for each transaction in that block. Fees can range from a few cents to a few dollars, depending on basically two factors: 1) network saturation. 2) priority. (You can choose to pay a high fee if you want the transaction to be processed within 10-15 minutes, or a lower fee that takes more than 30 minutes to process.) With LN (a way of transferring Bitcoins that works 'on top' of the blockchain), the network fee is reduced (in many cases, transactions are free) and is fast, in just a few seconds. (Although it is recommended to use it for small transactions, such as buying games or bread.)
Wait, did you read this far? dude, respect. :-) also, sorry again for the wall of text.
In everything (even for things unrelated to Bitcoin), the one who pays is the final consumer.
Yes. And that is why bitcoin will crash. It might take a decade or longer. It might be tomorrow.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/881472/worldwide-bitcoin-energy-consumption/
See that graph. See how it skyrockets around 2017, the year Steam discontinued accepting bitcoin. That is no coincidence. That's when bitcoin became unusable for paying things, because the costs per transaction were not justifyable anymore.
The current minimum electricity costs of bitcoin in 2025 is around 120 Terawatthours. That's more than the Netherlands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption
And a single transaction costs around 1000 kWh . https://coinlaw.io/bitcoin-energy-consumption-statistics/
Yes, that is three 0. It is the equivalent of running a 2000 Watt heater for 500 hours.
Who is paying for that 1000 kWh? Where are the costs hidden away? I say they are in the bubble of bitcoin "worth".
And this insanity is true for all coins that would be adopted for widespread use. It is blockchain. The very nature of that thing means, it must be computational costly.
Essentially you are paying with a proof how much energy you wasted. Or rather that someone else wasted and you gave them real money for a certificate that is encrypted in a system, so that it is hard to fake the certificate and hard to transfer it.
Some of your arguments might be lost in translation. English is not my native language either. It is a discussion for someplace else.
Yes, crypto currencies are a bad idea for a lot of reasons yet currently have some benefits in some scenarios. Overall, they are a very bad thing for the environment and especially bitcoin is an insanity to use. You cannot explain away the cost in energy for a transaction ( I was not even talking about the fee in bitcoin inside the system to facilitate the transfer. I just pointed out the energy cost and that those costs must be paid somehwere, somehow).
You cannot justify paying for a 5 $ game on Itch with a system that costs the equivalent of running a heater for 500 hours.
'In everything (even for things unrelated to Bitcoin), the one who pays is the final consumer.
Yes. And that's why Bitcoin will crash. It might take a decade or longer. It might be tomorrow.' <- Huh? Sorry, but I didn't understand.
Based on energy. Most of the big fintechs are in countries where energy is abundant and cheap.
'Who is paying for that 1000 kWh? Where are the costs hidden away?' Fintechs, as far as I know, generate enough money to pay for their own energy and operating costs. But I don't have any sources, so I could be wrong.
By the way, what's your problem with Bitcoin?
'English is not my native language either. It is a discussion for somewhere else.' <- Yes, we agree on this one. You and I shouldn't be arguing here.
It's not tax evasion to pay with a payment method that doesn't have taxes applied to it.
There are situations where certain taxations do not apply, but simply paying with crytpo currency does not change a transaction from taxable to be tax free.
By the way, what's your problem with Bitcoin?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transactio...
1 bitcoin transaction is roughly 1000000 visa transactions in electricity.
Paying with bitcoin on the chain produces costs equvalent to running an electrical heater for 500 hours. Even if you produce the electricity somewhere, where it is currently "cheap", that is still a huge waste of energy. Huge is too small a word for the comparison. If you compare things that should do the same, there should be percentages, like oh, credit card uses x amount, paypal uses 100% more, so it is environmentally friendlier to not use paypal, but credit card instead. That's a factor of 2. The factor when comparing to bitcoin is 1000000.
That insane imbalance does not even change, if you cut off a zero or two by using more efficient methods.
The costs are hidden away in the stock market price of bitcoin and in the financial losses of people trading bitcoin and losing money. They are also hidden in the cost of "mining" the coins. That's even more electricity waste.
It is not sustainable to hide away the costs (Not sustainable means, that it will crash someday). Someone has to pay for it. And it will be the people that have bitcoins as an investment, when bitcoin falls under the price they paid for it and they suddenly need real money. Oh, and it is the planet, because of all the energy and rescource waste.
So yeah, I kinda have a problem with bitcoin and crypto in general. It is wasteful in an insane way.
The irony is, even if you could overcome the costs somehow (you can't, it's crypto, it needs to be computational hard, else it is not crypto), the currency is not fit to be a currency. Too volatile. So the topic here makes sense, asking for "stable" coins.
But "stable" coins are an illusion. At best it is an escrow with extra steps. You buy "points" with money from an entity and that entity will let you spend those points at a seller's account. And that seller can exchange those points for money again. Obfuscating this with "crypto" is a marketing scam to lure people into believing this is crypto, the crypto they heard in the news about. It's not. You can't mine it - if you could, it is not stable. It is not decentral and independent from companies. So it has even less intrinsic value than crypto. It just has the name coin in it. But in reality it is about the same as if you would load up your paypal account for future payments. So you instead load up your crypto stablecoin wallet.
Okay, friend, this is getting out of hand.
I never said Bitcoin was perfect. (Personally, I don't care about other cryptocurrencies.) I don't deny that it's energy-inefficient, volatile, or has a steep learning curve.
I apologize in advance, but I'm going to take the liberty of assuming you're from somewhere in the European Union (since you used data from the Netherlands in one of your arguments). I'm from Latin America. I'm from a country where financial crises, hight inflation (and even hyperinflations) and poor political behavior (corruption, populism, cronyism, etc.) are commonplace.
I come from a poor country. Not on the level of Venezuela, but close.
You and I must come from two very different realities. That's where our entire discussion should come from. Neither of us is right, but neither are we wrong. We are two people biased by the experiences we've had.
You care a lot about the environment, and that's fine, it's something I respect, but in this case I had to choose between two evils. And frankly, I can't afford to be an environmentalist if it means descending into poverty.
Do you understand that I live in a reality where the financial situation is so bad that things like Bitcoin (for some people, of course) are seen as a viable alternative?
What if Bitcoin fails? Well, that's a risk I'm willing to take. But I can't simply resign myself to the situation I'm stuck in. Something I did NOT choose to live.
And if you're wondering, can't you move somewhere else? No. While I'm not poor, I'm not destitute. I lack the resources to move somewhere else and try to start all over again.
I apologize if my tone seems self-centered or arrogant. That's not the intention, nor was it ever.
Just a few things I noticed about bitcoin: Apparently the huge 'fees' for transactions only apply if you specifically set transaction speeds to the fastest possible. Me, I prefer a slower transaction - maybe 60~120 minutes. At >480 minutes, the fees drop even further. Bitcoin has refined itself in the last 5 years, with new protocols, wallets and technologies emerging to put it squarely in the hands of the people, rather than a specific company.
While it is suitable for some use cases, I admit I won't be using it as a main source of income because anyone can see what I have if I post a bitcoin address here haha.
This is an intriguing discussion! The idea of using USDC as an alternative to traditional payment processors like Visa/Mastercard is gaining traction, especially among indie developers facing payment restrictions. While the infrastructure exists, challenges such as KYC regulations and public perception of cryptocurrency remain significant hurdles. As one community member aptly noted, "It's on paper a decent way to take back control of a platform," but the implementation complexities are non-trivial.
For those interested in exploring this further, the General Discussion forum on https://itch.io/t/4991247/alternative-payment-source-options-for-indie-games hosts ongoing conversations about integrating cryptocurrency into indie game sales.
