Valve to no longer offer physical gift cards due to scammers

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: LoudTechie[/
American Express, Discover, JCB, PayPal, Wero(for european customers), PaysafeCard and Klarna are all still options.

But Wero is not offered yet, right?

Wero is a fusion of national payments providers and the ones that were supported before the fusion are still supported.

That's not what I asked.

Do you know a place where Wero can (directly) be used to buy Steam games already?

Because, I'm waiting for it to be supported here (Germany)...

This will stop nothing, there's no shortage of other gift cards these scammers can take advantage of.

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: blindcoderOh come ON. The last option to bypass fuckers like Master and Visa policing content on Steam, and OF COURSE they do away with it.

American Express, Discover, JCB, PayPal, Wero(for european customers), PaysafeCard and Klarna are all still options.

As for PayPal, they're also pretty stingy on adult content. I've seen people who work in adult entertainment (use your imagination) get their accounts nuked from orbit for the smallest mention of their field.

Quoting: PyrateYour first paragraph describes Bitcoin with its transparency that compromises one's privacy because all one's transactions are transparent on a public ledger. Monero doesn't do that, it has 3 distinct technologies that obfuscate the sender, the transaction amount, and receiver.

This still leaves us with the basic crypto issue that it has neither inherent value nor any stable institution giving it value, leaving it a terrible "store of value" whose main use is pure speculation.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: PyrateYour first paragraph describes Bitcoin with its transparency that compromises one's privacy because all one's transactions are transparent on a public ledger. Monero doesn't do that, it has 3 distinct technologies that obfuscate the sender, the transaction amount, and receiver.

This still leaves us with the basic crypto issue that it has neither inherent value nor any stable institution giving it value, leaving it a terrible "store of value" whose main use is pure speculation.

Simply not true. First of all, value and the concept of currency as a medium of exchange is subjective. An object is considered a currency when a group of people consider it as such and start trading between each other using said object. There are no rules that dictate what can and can't be a currency. It used to be gold, and now it's banknotes.

It is your subjective opinion that the concept of digital cash through something like Monero has no inherent value. Other people who value the private properties of cash, especially those who rely on it for their own safety and security, will continue to use it in the digital world. In the near future, when the end stage of this artificial ID verification requirement for everything on the internet (and maybe in real life) is reached, even more people will want to use Monero.

The speculation part is true for all the other crypto currencies that, at the end of the day, more or less exist because someone wanted to get rich quick, but here, speculation over Monero's market value has severely shrunken because of delistings that occured on a lot of major exchangers like Coinbase, Binance and the others, exchangers that are the main way most people get their hands on assets such as crypto. This made it so the barrier of entry is way higher than for a crypto bro to want to buy some Monero for speculation, the amount of shit you have to go through depending on your jurisdiction to get your hands on Monero is ridiculous at times, this filtered out a lot of those who are in it for speculation. Now, can you guess why the privacy tool for money go delisted and attacked ?

That's another thing, actually; take literally any of these fake crypto "coins", if any of them face the level of delisting and crackdown that Monero went through, their value will go to zero immediately, because as you've said, they have no use case beyond being numbers on a screen. Didn't happen to Monero, because it actually gets used by groups of people, outside of using it like stock asset for speculation.

For 'stable institution', that is achieved here with the mining consensus. This is error proof because it's all mathematics and physics, and not what some politically motivated official who decides whether or not to fuck his subjects over for personal gain (Trump, thanks to his shenanigans, makes this point so easy to accept).

It's another story altogether if you simply don't accept the concept of a decentralised way for people to operate and transact their own affairs without an uninvited oversight, that this can never happen, and that you must have an overlord issuing your only accepted form of exchange medium, telling you what you can and cannot spend your money on.

I genuinely feel here like one of those instances where I'm explaining the benefits of Linux to Windows users, or to use Signal instead of WhatsApp. It's the same thing all over again. Guess I'm cursed in this regard, lol.

Last edited by Pyrate on 11 Jun 2026 at 4:37 pm UTC

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: PyrateYour first paragraph describes Bitcoin with its transparency that compromises one's privacy because all one's transactions are transparent on a public ledger. Monero doesn't do that, it has 3 distinct technologies that obfuscate the sender, the transaction amount, and receiver.

This still leaves us with the basic crypto issue that it has neither inherent value nor any stable institution giving it value, leaving it a terrible "store of value" whose main use is pure speculation.

Simply not true. First of all, value and the concept of currency as a medium of exchange is subjective. An object is considered a currency when a group of people consider it as such and start trading between each other using said object. There are no rules that dictate what can and can't be a currency. It used to be gold, and now it's banknotes.

Gold was always only sort of a currency. The thing about gold is it's considered valuable in itself. It's still valuable if there's no king's head stamped on it. And historically it was noticeable that if a government reduced the amount of gold in the currency, debased it, it lost value. So that has its uses--if you use gold as a currency, it doesn't matter if the government is weak or subject to rapid change, as long as it has access to a gold mine it can issue currency and that currency will have value.

Fiat currencies have value largely because there is a government that insists you pay your taxes in them. Governments have social, institutional longevity; there is some sort of social contract involving the whole population of a country that more or less agrees that the country has a government and that government gets to decide how money works in the country. And they have lawyers and armed people who will give you a hard time if you break the law by not paying your taxes in the currency the government makes. Therefore everyone has to have some, therefore it has value. So these currencies usually have a fair degree of stability; you can put them in the bank and when you turn around they will still be worth something. But it's noticeable that when the governments backing them become weak or come under strong attack, the value of the currency can fluctuate extremely.

Crypto is a fiat currency with a government backing it that is so weak it does not exist. There is nobody insisting you have to pay your taxes or debts using crypto. Crypto's value is supported solely by "extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds", which has worked for a few years but is fickle. The viability of crypto right now is mainly an artifact of massive inequality; as the very rich siphon off more and more of the world's money, they look for anything to invest in. Everything becomes a bubble, from stocks to art. Speculation has become a larger and larger part of the economy, and so it is the right time for a pure speculation vehicle to do well. But crypto's value even in these hothouse conditions fluctuates wildly, and come a crash it will crash hardest of all because it has nothing behind it except the "animal spirits" of investors, and once their optimism changes to fear it will have no value at all.

But even before we get there, it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back, most of the attempts to use it as actual currency day to day have gone away. That's because it is almost entirely a speculative investment vehicle, not money. There are a few specialized uses, yes, like crime and evading sanctions (and personally, I consider the evading sanctions part a good thing). But in general, crypto isn't money, doesn't act like money, and will not start acting like money because it has neither inherent value nor any solid social institution forcing its use as money to give it stable value.

Quoting: PyrateFor 'stable institution', that is achieved here with the mining consensus. This is error proof because it's all mathematics and physics, and not what some politically motivated official who decides whether or not to fuck his subjects over for personal gain (Trump, thanks to his shenanigans, makes this point so easy to accept).

It's another story altogether if you simply don't accept the concept of a decentralised way for people to operate and transact their own affairs without an uninvited oversight, that this can never happen, and that you must have an overlord issuing your only accepted form of exchange medium, telling you what you can and cannot spend your money on.

Error proof doesn't matter a damn. I mean, I suppose it would be even stupider without it, but that does not substitute for real social institutions.

But the point is not centralization. The point is power. Whether centralized or decentralized, the organization must have some way of binding people to the decisions made. If it's just "if I happen to feel like it", it will fall apart. If you have a decentralized direct democracy, and everyone votes and the majority agree to thing X, then the difference between a decentralized direct democracy government and a decentralized direct democracy culture club is, once the vote has happened, is there a mechanism to make sure everyone operates according to what was agreed? If yes, it's a real institution. If no, it's a socially pleasant nonentity and it sure as hell can't do a currency.

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: LoudTechie[/
American Express, Discover, JCB, PayPal, Wero(for european customers), PaysafeCard and Klarna are all still options.

But Wero is not offered yet, right?

Wero is a fusion of national payments providers and the ones that were supported before the fusion are still supported.

That's not what I asked.

Do you know a place where Wero can (directly) be used to buy Steam games already?

Because, I'm waiting for it to be supported here (Germany)...

Yeah, but apparently I wasn't clear.
The Netherlands.

Just like before the fusion IDEAL continues to work.
IDEAL is now Wero.
Thus Wero works there.

You continue to talk about Bitcoin and bitcoin-like crytpo in particular, like everything I've mentioned about Monero is irrelevant. With all due respect, after this message, if I feel like what I type isn't being engaged with, I think I'm better off spending my time doing something else rather than write a few paragraphs that'll get avoided.

Crypto is a fiat currency with a government backing it that is so weak it does not exist.

Which crypto is that ? Which one is a fiat currency and has government backing ? On the actual topic of discussing Monero, what you said doesn't apply here. It very much isn't fiat, and no country claimed to back or have reserves in Monero (I posit countries like North Korea or Iran would be the first candidates if such a thing happens).

it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back

It's not, really. Bitcoin (and by extension, the rest of the market) is down significantly from its 2021 highs currently. I don't follow the broader news outside Monero because it's all hollow investment schemes as you say, but from what I know, the game is shifting from crypto to AI and other stocks, crypto as an investment is being left behind, and that's a good thing.

most of the attempts to use it as actual currency day to day have gone away

Again, do you say all this while being knowledgeable about Monero and the economy being created around it ? This is where I'm going to have to start sharing links, so here are a few examples:

Buy/sell goods & services with/for XMR!:
Directory for Merchants accepting Monero:
https:/monerica.com/
marketplace:
https://xmrbazaar.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/moneromarket/new/
Gift cards:
https://cakepay.com/
https://xmr.cards/
https://coincards.com/
Freelance:
https://monero.jobs/

But in general, crypto isn't money, doesn't act like money, and will not start acting like money because it has neither inherent value

I've already responded to this in my previous message.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: PyrateFor 'stable institution', that is achieved here with the mining consensus. This is error proof because it's all mathematics and physics, and not what some politically motivated official who decides whether or not to fuck his subjects over for personal gain (Trump, thanks to his shenanigans, makes this point so easy to accept).

It's another story altogether if you simply don't accept the concept of a decentralised way for people to operate and transact their own affairs without an uninvited oversight, that this can never happen, and that you must have an overlord issuing your only accepted form of exchange medium, telling you what you can and cannot spend your money on.

Error proof doesn't matter a damn. I mean, I suppose it would be even stupider without it, but that does not substitute for real social institutions.

But the point is not centralization. The point is power. Whether centralized or decentralized, the organization must have some way of binding people to the decisions made. If it's just "if I happen to feel like it", it will fall apart. If you have a decentralized direct democracy, and everyone votes and the majority agree to thing X, then the difference between a decentralized direct democracy government and a decentralized direct democracy culture club is, once the vote has happened, is there a mechanism to make sure everyone operates according to what was agreed? If yes, it's a real institution. If no, it's a socially pleasant nonentity and it sure as hell can't do a currency.

This isn't either or. I'm not arguing to overthrow fiat and replace it with Monero. Both can exist, as they do now, and any individual can choose to participate in what's referred to as the parallel economy. I do believe more people will indulge into this currency because, if world events are anything to go by, they'll soon have to.

And again, mining consensus does exist, I believe this answers your question in the second paragraph. Monero's network for example went through multiple 'hard forks' where the community, and those who power the network around the world was made aware a network upgrade is planned in advance, the update which is discussed and agreed upon by the community and developed in the open, also funded (in Monero) by the community. Once a hard fork goes live, any miner who doesn't update the Monero software gets their work invalidated by consensus. You can read more about this online if you're interested.

Quoting: PyrateIt's another story altogether if you simply don't accept the concept of a decentralised way for people to operate and transact their own affairs without an uninvited oversight, that this can never happen, and that you must have an overlord issuing your only accepted form of exchange medium, telling you what you can and cannot spend your money on.

I genuinely feel here like one of those instances where I'm explaining the benefits of Linux to Windows users, or to use Signal instead of WhatsApp. It's the same thing all over again. Guess I'm cursed in this regard, lol.

The real fix would probably be to go back to a gold standard and move away from fiat currency, so that the money itself has intrinsic value. I'm with you on the idea that money really should be decentralized though. I do like Bitcoin, but as someone else on this thread has already mentioned, it does come at an environmental cost that's always bothered me. Everything has pros and cons.

Quoting: SlaxerThe real fix would probably be to go back to a gold standard and move away from fiat currency, so that the money itself has intrinsic value. I'm with you on the idea that money really should be decentralized though. I do like Bitcoin, but as someone else on this thread has already mentioned, it does come at an environmental cost that's always bothered me. Everything has pros and cons.

I too would like a return to the gold standard. That fixes the value and asymmetrical depreciation part, but what about privacy ?

And about the environmental costs for running Bitcoin I already mentioned that I talked about it in one of my messages.

Last edited by Pyrate on 11 Jun 2026 at 9:10 pm UTC

Quoting: Pyrate

Crypto is a fiat currency with a government backing it that is so weak it does not exist.

Which crypto is that ? Which one is a fiat currency and has government backing ?

You misunderstood. My point is that crypto (all kinds) is effectively a "fiat" currency in that it has no inherent value the way gold does, but that it resembles a fiat currency issued by an infinitely weak government--that is, no government at all is the same as a government with zero power. And so, just as fiat currencies from governments that are very weak exhibit wide swings of value, we can expect fiat currencies from no government at all to exhibit even wider swings--indeed, there is no real underpinning stopping them from ceasing to have value at all.

Quoting: Pyrate

it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back

It's not, really. Bitcoin (and by extension, the rest of the market) is down significantly from its 2021 highs currently. I don't follow the broader news outside Monero because it's all hollow investment schemes as you say, but from what I know, the game is shifting from crypto to AI and other stocks, crypto as an investment is being left behind, and that's a good thing.

While it's true that in the last year or so AI has taken the headlines, there are a lot of ways in which crypto has become more mainstream over the last while, particularly in the US. Various laws have been passed basically allowing crypto to be invested in without much safeguards; the crypto lobby has poured a lot of money into elections and has in general gotten a good deal of its wishlist and been treated much more like a standard, respectable investment (even though it is not).

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: SlaxerThe real fix would probably be to go back to a gold standard and move away from fiat currency, so that the money itself has intrinsic value. I'm with you on the idea that money really should be decentralized though. I do like Bitcoin, but as someone else on this thread has already mentioned, it does come at an environmental cost that's always bothered me. Everything has pros and cons.

I too would like a return to the gold standard.

A return to the gold standard would run into a basic problem: A functioning broader economy pretty much depends on governments running deficits and some inflation. You can't print gold. Yes, I know gold bugs think balanced budgets are the bee's knees, that's because they have no idea about the economy. There's a reason why even neoliberal central banks don't try for zero inflation (these days, most target a band around 2-3%, which is probably too low); if they did, there would be recessions all the time. Any non-fiat currency based on something with a supply that's difficult to expand chokes off economic growth.

There's nothing much wrong with traditional government-issued fiat currency (there are problems with the governments that deploy them, some bigger than others, but that's the way of institutions created by imperfect humans). The gold standard would solve problems we don't have but create a bunch of problems we don't have. Crypto generally fails to solve problems we don't have but creates problems we don't have. And your special magic crypto appears to solve some crypto problems that are not the basic Achilles' heel of cryptocurrencies, but does not solve the fundamental problem that the whole idea is one of those things where a techbro looks at an issue in politics and sociology, fails to understand it, and says "We could do a technical fix for that!"

Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut even before we get there, it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back, most of the attempts to use it as actual currency day to day have gone away.

I think you believe this because you don't see, crypto being used. I think people assumed crypto would be used like cash. I think it would have but, before that could happen, crypto became speculative and lead people to hold onto it like gold. Now a days though, financial institutions are building out and utilizing crypto, which makes it invisible to the consumer. Someone early in the chat mention PIX as an option to pay on Steam. PIX uses the blockchain to seamlessly exchange currencies. You attach your bank account, when you pay with PIX, your currency will be converted through the liquid pools on the blockchain and pay the store in their local currency, all for a few pennies. That's insane compared to traditional means. Sure, it's still the early days, and it's not how people initially imagined how things would work. But it is happening. If you are in the know, then you are using it and saving money. Only 7% of the worlds population holds crypto. If you are a normie, then you will probably have to wait for the institutions to bake it in to their products, i.e. MoneyGram, Stripe, Paypal. For me, I'm glad I don't have to pull stacks of peso's from the ATM to save on exchange fees, then hide it all in my motorcycle jacket while I ride around MX. That's pretty good.

Quoting: PyrateI too would like a return to the gold standard. That fixes the value and asymmetrical depreciation part, but what about privacy ?

The only true privacy is physical cash, so a gold standard could provide that too couldn't it? You also gotta ask - privacy from who? If your transactions leave a paper trail or a digital footprint, you can never be too sure that any counter-measures you have in place will stop anybody determined enough from revealing who you are, but it's probably safe to say that you can have a reasonable amount of privacy from corporations and nosy regular people. Privacy from intelligence agencies? Probably not.

Last edited by Slaxer on 11 Jun 2026 at 10:03 pm UTC