Valve announced that its online game retail platform
Steam will no longer be using
Bitcoin as a payment method. The company cited that due to the increasingly large transaction fee and the volatility of the cryptocurrency as a few of the factors in the decision.
Lately in the last few weeks,
Bitcoin has seen dramatic spikes and dips in value, sometimes over 24 hour periods. With processing time for the currency also taking upwards of 24 hours in a few cases, the currency may have dramatically changed in value by the time the transaction is processed.
“Historically, the value of Bitcoin has been volatile, but the degree of volatility has become extreme in the last few months, losing as much as 25% in value over a period of days,” Valve explained.
“The value of Bitcoin is only guaranteed for a certain period of time so if the transaction doesn’t complete within that window of time, then the amount of Bitcoin needed to cover the transaction can change. The amount it can change has been increasing recently to a point where it can be significantly different.”
Valve would either have to refund the original payment, or ask the customer to pay the difference. In both cases, according to
Valve, the
Bitcoin network will charge a transaction fee on, so then there would be two fees on one order.
Valve also stated that the transaction fee for Bitcon was only US$0.20 when it first began supporting the cryptocurrency. Yet the transaction fees have also risen to as high as US$20 recently. When the value of
Bitcoin drops, these high fees become even more of a problem. So with that small problem consistently happening they have decided that it would be best not to support at this time, but said that they are open to reevaluation at a later date.
About The Author:
GBest
Member Since
9/11/2017
When not busy with school or sports, can usually be found watching anime, reading manga or online fragging people and earning massive XP in an MMORPG with his friends over Team Speak.