Microsoft Press Office: "We’ve Restored Bitcoin as a Payment Option"

The other day we reported on the tech giant Microsoft removing the “redeem bitcoin” option from its payments page. One of our reporters spoke with a Microsoft agent who detailed that bitcoin was no longer supported. Later in the evening on January 9, two news outlets detailed they had chatted with a Microsoft spokeswoman who said, “We’ve restored bitcoin as a payment option in our store after working with our provider.”

Also read: Miami Bitcoin Conference Stops Accepting Bitcoin Due to Fees and Congestion

Microsoft Temporarily Halts Bitcoin Payment Services

The question on every bitcoin proponent’s mind — Does Microsoft still accept bitcoin for Windows services and Xbox accounts? Yesterday, news.Bitcoin.com’s Avi Mizrahi reached out to a Microsoft associate who revealed that the company had removed the “redeem bitcoin” link on December 26, 2017. From that point forward users did not see the option to load bitcoin into their accounts on the Microsoft platform.

“I just want to set your expectations that we indeed already stopped offering bitcoin payments and that is the reason you were not able to access the redeem bitcoin payment option,” explains a Microsoft agent to news.Bitcoin.com.

Bitcoin Payment Options Restored On January 9

On January 9, after multiple press accounts detailing that Microsoft had stopped dealing with bitcoin due to “network instability,” a few new reports came out declaring that the company had restored bitcoin payment services. The publications news.com.au, Softpedia, and a few others stated that a Microsoft spokeswoman told them the “redeem bitcoin” button would be returning to the platform.

Again our reporter Avi Mizrahi reached out to Microsoft’s press office to confirm the rumors that the company had restored bitcoin payments. The statement a Microsoft spokesperson provided to Mizrahi explains:

We’ve restored Bitcoin as a payment option in our store after working with our provider to ensure lower Bitcoin amounts would be redeemable by customers.

The “Redeem Bitcoin” Feature Reappears

At the time of writing this article, some users in certain areas still cannot see the “redeem bitcoin” feature. However, news.Bitcoin.com was able to see the bitcoin payment option restored in a screen shot from one of our correspondents located in Israel. The “redeem bitcoin” option for denominations between $10-100 can now be accessed once again in the Microsoft account holder’s “payments and billing” section.

What do you think about Microsoft restoring bitcoin payments? Let us know what you think about this story in the comments below.

** Additional reporting by Avi Mizrahi

Images via Microsoft, Pixabay, and Avi Mizrahi.

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