Valve President reveals reasons why Steam does not support cryptocurrency and NFTs: 50% of past transactions were fraudulent, NFTs exploit users.

Valve's President Gabe Newell, also known as GabeN, recently expressed his views on cryptocurrency and NFTs in an interview, explaining the reasons behind the decision to stop accepting cryptocurrency payments on the Steam platform.

Steam, owned by Valve, integrated Bitcoin as a payment method on the platform as early as April 2016, but just over a year later, this feature was discontinued in December 2017. The reason given by Valve at that time was:

The highly volatile price of Bitcoin and significantly increased transaction fees on the blockchain.

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About half a year ago, Valve's ban on listing blockchain games and NFT games angered some cryptocurrency enthusiasts. For more details, you can refer to the previous report.

Not a Fan of Cryptocurrency, at Least in Steam's Business

Last week, Gabe Newell, also known as GabeN, expressed his overall views on the ban on blockchain games and cryptocurrency in an interview about the company's newly launched handheld console, Steam Deck.

The issue is that many people in the field do not want to engage with or have your customers interact with them. When we started accepting cryptocurrency as a payment option, we found that 50% of these transactions were fraudulent, a staggering figure that we did not want to have these customers.

GabeN also reiterated that the volatility of Bitcoin makes it a nightmare for its payment functionality. For example, when someone spends $10 worth of Bitcoin on a game, only to find out the next day that it cost $100, customers are not happy.

His views have not changed with the recent rise of blockchain games and NFTs. He further stated:

There are many interesting technologies used in blockchain, and we are also figuring out how to establish a decentralized ledger. However, I don't think people have figured out why you actually need a decentralized ledger.

The Difference Between Technological Essence and Application

GabeN believes that when discussing, one must first distinguish between the underlying technology and the participants using that technology, and gave an example: a chemist is studying nitrocellulose, mostly used to make gun propellants. The scientist might think of interesting applications for nitrocellulose. However, if everyone buys guns and uses them to shoot people, the scientist might think that the chemical reaction during shooting is successful, but the purpose of use and the resulting consequences are not so good.

Do not equate NFT with shooting others; the underlying technology of decentralized ledger, ownership of digital assets, and shared universes are all very reasonable.

However, it is the difference between what the essence should be and the current real-world applications that leads to some games and NFT projects using blockchain technology on the market only exploiting users. This is not an issue with the essence of the technology itself, but Valve and the Steam platform do not want their users to face these issues while considering the users' best interests.