Valve has confirmed that it will no longer support Bitcoin as a payment option on Steam. The decision is “due to high fees and volatility in the value of Bitcoin.”

“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,” the company explained in its post. “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 noted that, while Bitcoin has traditionally been volatile in value, the “degree of volatility” for the popular cryptocurrency has become unsustainable over the past few months.

“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 company clarified. “The amount it can change has been increasing recently to a point where it can be significantly different.”

“The normal resolution for this is to either refund the original payment to the user, or ask the user to transfer additional funds to cover the remaining balance. In both these cases, the user is hit with the Bitcoin network transaction fee again.”

Valve has seen an “increasing number of customers” caught in this circumstance and has removed Bitcoin as a payment option on Steam in response.

Valve may re-consider whether Bitcoin could return as a payment option at a later date.

It was first reported that Valve was prepping to accept Bitcoin for Steam purchases back in April 2016.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN's Sydney office. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.