The only person talking about removing choices is you.
You are asking CCP to incur new expenses for what several people suggest will be a limited return, especially given the alternate options already present to care for subscription needs.
You have not yet presented an argument for how adding an additional payment method will attract users who otherwise would be unable/unwilling to pay for the game.
Any new payment method has an up-front expense, ranging from simple man hours to research options to legal fees for contract review by a lawyer, and very likely annual minimum fees for the processor regardless of processing volume. Unless CCP can readily and reasonably project that a certain minimum viable threshold of new subscriptions/purchases will be made across X amount of time, it is a literal waste of money to even start researching this option.
They already have additional payment methods being added, they already incur costs, they want money, they need money, the value proposition is up to them, I am simply giving my desire for it, I know Iâm not alone but the ultimate decision is theirs. Unless we actually talk about it, nobodyâs gona talk about it.
Discussing it =/= rejecting everyoneâs arguments against adding this option (which comes at a loss of developing other features - that up-front money comes at the expense of some other budget item, after all) without actually presenting counter-arguments.
You want this. Justify it. Answer the questions about what value this adds to the game. Give statistics about cryptocurrency usage among CCPâs target demographic - including types of spend cryptocurrency is used for (entertainment vs investments vs bills etc). Support your position.
They have a finite budget. Standing up a new payment method incurs expense, which comes out of that finite budget. Something else has to be given up to add cryptocurrency to the project plan. That may be one less FTE for coding, one less FTE for website maintenance, not buying replacement/upgrade parts for servers, etc.
Period, it costs money.
How much new money will they realistically make adding cryptocurrency as a payment option? It doesnât sound like you have any idea - so you cannot argue against people being concerned about it being a waste of time and money that would otherwise go into maintaining and/or improving their experience with EVE.
You wanted the option to pay in Bitcoin. Another Currency option alongside USD, Euro or Ruble.
Actually you donât.
Paying in Bitcoin is âOmega = 0.002 BTC/monthâ (or whatever) with CCP taking the exchange risk the same as they do for Euros or Rubles (or USD since CCP probably account in Islandic Kroner). You want to pay in USD, or something else, but have CCP arrange for someone to do the Bitcoin to USD transaction for you.
Thatâs not freedom, thatâs you being Lazy.
You can use Bitcoin to pay for an Eve Subscription. The same as someone in, say Morocco can use a Moroccan credit card to make a Dollar payment to CCP at whatever the Dirham to USD rate is at that point.
Probably easier.
Anyone has the freedom to pay, using a transfer through an exchange broker, in any currency they wish.
You have the freedom, you have the option to pay for Eve in Bitcoin, or Dirham, or whatever, itâs your choice. Anyone already can.
Ok, not Flainian Pobble Beads, but you canât win 'em all.
You do realise transactions on payments are time limited in minutes not months
Your payment will expire if itâs not en route before that and you have to do it all again at the next rate they offer. And thatâs not even using LN.
Have you ever spent it, even once?
âThe payment portal for crypto exchange Coinbase passed $200 million in transactions from the platformâs 8,000 integrated retailers.â
Thatâs just one payment processor, and just the beginning. Small number in the grand scale of things, but no small number for a company
You do know that is all handled in the background through account settlement across SWIFT for bank to bank transactions?
Customer International transactions are normally, in the first instance, handled internally in a bank, they move money between internal ledgers to be settled through interbank transfers before the end of day - they buying and selling of various currencies to settle these ledgers.
For example a UK bank will hold a reserve of USD. If I buy something in dollars, then the bank takes GBP from my account into their holding account, then they pay in dollars.
At some point during the day their currency division will use their GBP holding to buy USD on the market (thatâs a brokered market like the one inside Eve btw) to restore their dollar holdings. They need to be confident of buying the relevant currencies is why the exchange rate you get is never as good as the base market rates.
This, by the way, is why banks are required in law to hold enough assets to underwrite their liabilities - just incase the market shifts quickly beneath them.
The upshot is a customer cross-currency transaction is instant - as fast as a banks internal IT can handle it.
The international system is a fascinating thing.
$200m total is peanuts compared to the $100bn per day running over the international banking system.
SWIFT yes a great fine example of unreliability and high fees and failed transactions
Now weâre talking banking, if you want, reserve ratios were eliminated in many western countries, UK has none, US now is zero or near it.
CCP is not a bank, payment processors are not a bank (Coinbase did apply and yes the regulations are simply astountingly massive, probably more books than the EU constitution)
Of course, and there is no reserve requirement for the UK and US, you will see it in Eastern Europe though, BoE has none, US went to zero if I remember.
In the west weâre screwed if it goes up and donât even get me started on the EIB liabilities
US 10% for large banks - those holding over $125m (yep, same Wikipedia page).
UK dropped theirs to 0%, which is not the same no reserve requirements; they canât run a negative ledger. They are also required to meet resilience requirements, showing they can cover their debts in the event of adverse market conditions.
Thereâs a lot of banking regulation.
So saying, as you have pointed out, the use of Bitcoin for settling general debts does require the use of existing currencies and Banking arrangements.
The world is, as this year is really demonstrating, hugely interconnected.
However, your initial question has been addressed: You can pay for an Eve Subscription using Bitcoin. We both agree the mechanism is there, and indeed allows for anyone with any currency to make a payment to CCP, but CCP only take the market risk for certain currencies. You have the freedom to do it, or not do it using existing broker, exchange and Banking services.
By discussing wider banking issues (however interesting they may be) we are going off topic and that nice Mr @ISD_Dorrim_Barstorlode will correctly get upset and rightly close us down.
