Steam No Longer Supports Bitcoin

Valve has announced today that it no longer plans to support purchases on Steam with bitcoin, stating that there was “high fees and volatility” in the value of the crypto currency.

They went on to state in a post on Steam that “In the past few months we’ve seen an increase in the volatility in the value of Bitcoin and a significant increase in the fees to process transactions on the Bitcoin network…For example, transaction fees that are charged to the customer by the Bitcoin network have skyrocketed this year, topping out at close to $20 a transaction last week (compared to roughly $0.20 when we initially enabled Bitcoin). Unfortunately, Valve has no control over the amount of the fee. These fees result in unreasonably high costs for purchasing games when paying with Bitcoin. The high transaction fees cause even greater problems when the value of Bitcoin itself drops dramatically.”

Valve seems to believe that this volatility in the bitcoin value has it jumping all over the place, citing that it “has become extreme in the last few months, losing as much as 25% in value over a period of days.”

This reason has Valve pulling out on their backing, as it causes extreme issues for us as clientele. With the extreme fluctuations happening so regularly whenever you try to check “out on Steam, a customer will transfer x amount of Bitcoin for the cost of the game, plus y amount of Bitcoin to cover the transaction fee charged by the Bitcoin network…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.” Thus meaning you never know if you have the right amount of currency with Bitcoin. As a consumer who already pays a lot for video games, I don’t need the added pressure of not knowing that my money will add up to the right amount during my purchases.

Christmas is hard enough without purchases that cost me more than intended after all.

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