Can someone connect Facebook credits and Bitcoins

[Coin.Karma]

I got no clue, just thought might be helpful in some way.

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[bitcool]

Chargeback is a problem

[indicasteve]

I don't belong to facecrack...but I'm interested...how much are crackcredits worth?  and is there an exchange for them for USD somewhere?

[Gavin Andresen]

Facebook credits are designed so that dollars go in, but only flow back out to the companies with facebook games.

And Facebook tries hard to ensure that the companies cashing out the credits are real companies, and not people just trying to move money through their system. There are no open exchanges, by design.

[enmaku]

Facebook credits are designed so that dollars go in, but only flow back out to the companies with facebook games.

And Facebook tries hard to ensure that the companies cashing out the credits are real companies, and not people just trying to move money through their system. There are no open exchanges, by design.

Well really that's not the problem right now, since we're talking about trading facebook credits (hereafter referred to as FBC) for BTC, which is a non-monetary exchange at present. If someone then exchanged their BTC for USD that's not really facebook's problem.

The problem right now is, that I'm aware of, there is no way to send, trade, exchange etc. facebook credits with other users.

[Stephen Gornick]

Facebook credits are designed so that dollars go in, but only flow back out to the companies with facebook games.

Except when they flow out to game developers, Facebook keeps 30%

And Facebook tries hard to ensure that the companies cashing out the credits are real companies, and not people just trying to move money through their system. There are no open exchanges, by design.

For now.  Here's an example of Facebook bumping up against the line ...

Currently consumers pay for Facebook Deals inside Facebook with a credit card,with PayPal or with Facebook Credits.  Here's an example of one of the Deals where a $20 voucher at a restaurant may be purchased for $9 worth of Facebook Credits (or whichever method they use for valuing FB credits ).
  - http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2011/06/09/facebook-deals-continues-to-get-interesting

in other words ...,
it is only a matter of time before Bitcoin and FB are head-on competitors.

[bitcool]

It's only a matter of time someone will start offering "Bitcoin Deals" to this user group, either as a vendor directly (likely already happened somewhere), or as an intermediary like Groupon.

[cloud9]

Rather do a facebook app implementation of bitcoinjs "and it went viral".

[Gavin Andresen]

One of the speakers at the Emerging Technology conference I attended at the CIA was from Facebook Payments, and he seemed pretty adamant that they're committed to doing what they can to keep the people buy the credits (users who want to play games) separate from the people who cash them out (the game developers).

So a facebook app implementation of bitcoinjs would very likely not be approved for Facebook payments.

[realnowhereman]

Perhaps I don't understand facebook credits enough (I know nothing about them, so that's pretty likely); but if they are transferable between individual users, then they are exchangeable for bitcoins.

A: Hello, I have 10 FB credits.
B: Hello, I have 10 BTC; would you like to trade?
A: <tippy, tappy, tap, send 10 FB to B's facebook>
B: <tippy, tappy, tap, send 10 BTC to A's address>

Trust is a problem; chargebacks are a problem; but they're for someone else to solve (escrow?).  It's certainly doable though, and doesn't require permission from facebook.  Since this exchange could be organised outside facebook, they needn't even know.

[cloud9]

So a facebook app implementation of bitcoinjs would very likely not be approved for Facebook payments.

Would a facebook app implementation of bitcoinjs be approved, for transfer of bitcoins between facebook users?

[phungus]

If Facebook is really betting their future on crappy friction-addiction games, while it may be a safe bet now while people have all kinds of throw-away cash at present, I would not want to be a long-term investor in such a strategy, taking into account overall world economic trends.

They may have to open it up in the future if enough housewives decide they don't want to spend their credits on pointless games anymore because they're actually taking away from the food budget. So far, I have not heard of any really useful Facebook applications that would have me agree to sign over my personal information, and certainly nothing that would have me actually send money to FB. As soon as they show some REAL utility with their social app, then I'll change my mind. Farmville is not it.

But, we may all just continue to live on in a fantasy dream world where everything is just bought and paid for anyway. I highly doubt it, long term.

[Enzo]

Perhaps I don't understand facebook credits enough (I know nothing about them, so that's pretty likely); but if they are transferable between individual users, then they are exchangeable for bitcoins.

A: Hello, I have 10 FB credits.
B: Hello, I have 10 BTC; would you like to trade?
A: <tippy, tappy, tap, send 10 FB to B's facebook>
B: <tippy, tappy, tap, send 10 BTC to A's address>

Trust is a problem; chargebacks are a problem; but they're for someone else to solve (escrow?).  It's certainly doable though, and doesn't require permission from facebook.  Since this exchange could be organised outside facebook, they needn't even know.

and then probably facebook will say: "ehi B, where did you buy those FBs?? You are allowed to buy only from us. Your account is closed."
They can do that.

[realnowhereman]

Perhaps I don't understand facebook credits enough (I know nothing about them, so that's pretty likely); but if they are transferable between individual users, then they are exchangeable for bitcoins.

A: Hello, I have 10 FB credits.
B: Hello, I have 10 BTC; would you like to trade?
A: <tippy, tappy, tap, send 10 FB to B's facebook>
B: <tippy, tappy, tap, send 10 BTC to A's address>

Trust is a problem; chargebacks are a problem; but they're for someone else to solve (escrow?).  It's certainly doable though, and doesn't require permission from facebook.  Since this exchange could be organised outside facebook, they needn't even know.

and then probably facebook will say: "ehi B, where did you buy those FBs?? You are allowed to buy only from us. Your account is closed."
They can do that.

"If they are transferable between individual users" is what I said.  That would have to be a facility provided by facebook.  If they don't want you to do that then that hypothetical will be false, and the rest of what I said would obviously not be correct.

Transfers between users implies trade is allowed; bitcoins are tradeable.  If one, then the other.

[error]

Can't really be done. Facebook credits can only be purchased from Facebook, and only redeemed by Facebook. They cannot be transferred from one user to another.

[realnowhereman]

Can't really be done. Facebook credits can only be purchased from Facebook, and only redeemed by Facebook. They cannot be transferred from one user to another.

That can't be the whole truth, they must be transferrable to someone, otherwise they have no purpose.

Perhaps you have to be certified by facebook first, but trade is the point not just holding them.

[haydent]

forget it, anything that does work will be stopped. facebook has made that clear. while they or anyone accept cc/pp, it will be trouble with btc

[markm]

Facebook credits are pretty much useless because they cannot be traded.

If farmville real estate, objects, services tc also cannot be traded, farmville is also useless.

What we need are virtual / digital domains and/or games that can be traded.

As far as I know, Ogame, Zorg Empire, and Astro Empires, and maybe pretty much all similar games / universes, do not permit trade or are very restrictive of trade.

That is why I set up http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/ ... To have a universe whose resources can be traded.

It is also why various nations in Freeciv's Galactic Milieu have commissioned blockchain-based currencies: they want to trade.

The galaxies game is particularly good for trade right now because it turns out calling it Beta was maybe a bit of an exaggeration. I would call it a little more like Alpha, because the combat system not only does not work but cannot ever have worked in the state it is in, It seems to have been started but then maybe been undermined by some database field name changes and some formats of certain fields and gosh knows what else. So you don't have to worry about being attacked, you can just build up your resource production.

I have one of those villages games too I was going to try, though it too might well turn out not to be nearly as finished as the box tries to make it seem. (Well not really box: more like SourceForge repository. )

I also have been adapting my IRC over-the-counter-trading bots back ends to create bots for Crossfire RPG.

If facebook wants to try to prohibit trade in its oppressive universes lets just build better universes... or at least free-er ones!

-MarkM-

[error]

Can't really be done. Facebook credits can only be purchased from Facebook, and only redeemed by Facebook. They cannot be transferred from one user to another.

That can't be the whole truth, they must be transferrable to someone, otherwise they have no purpose.

Perhaps you have to be certified by facebook first, but trade is the point not just holding them.

Have you actually looked at Facebook credits? I did, months ago, after I had the same idea of doing a Bitcoin exchange using them. It simply can't be done. The only "trade" Facebook allows is: User buys Facebook credits from Facebook; user gives Facebook credits to application; application developer cashes out Facebook credits at Facebook. Users cannot send Facebook credits to each other, nor can application developers send Facebook credits to users (except very small "courtesy" amounts, which Facebook will not redeem for cash).

Sorry, unless Facebook changes something significant, it's not going to work.