Popular online gaming platform Steam is banning its bitcoin payments feature system Gamers can no longer pay with bitcoin
Popular online gaming platform Steam is banning its bitcoin payments feature system Gamers can no longer pay with bitcoin
on the gaming platform, Steam Bitcoin hit an unseen problem on Thursday as the largest online gaming network
shop in the U.S. and Europe said it will no longer accept the cryptocurrency as a source of payment because of its high transaction fees and volatile price.
Valve Corp.’s Steam, the video game platform, said allowing bitcoin payment has, which is owned by developer Valve Corporation,
said in a blog post-Wednesday that it could no longer support the virtual
currency because of its “high fees” and “volatility”.
“In the past few months, we’ve seen an become “untenable” as surging fees have resulted in high costs for buyers, while massive
price swings during purchases can result in “significantly different” prices. bitcoin price reached upto $20 per transaction last
week, compared with about 20 cents when bitcoin was first enabled, the company said in the statement.
in the volatility in the value of bitcoin and a significant increase in the fees to
process transactions on the bitcoin network,” Steam told.
All bitcoin transactions are recorded on a huge decentralized record of transactions known as the blockchain.
To keep the network work properly, voluntary bitcoin “miners” have to work out difficult mathematical solutions to add a transaction to the
distributed ledger. In return for their ongoing maintenance of the network, miners are paid transaction fees.
The average transaction fee currently costs $7, according to data from BitInfoCharts. And Blockchain.info shows that miners
have made more than $3 million dollars in transaction fees.
Volatility
Steam said that volatility was another factor in the service’s decision to drop bitcoin payment support.
Recently, the digital currency has surged to record highs well above $10,000. But there have been times when bitcoin’s price
has dropped significantly, raising concerns about its viability as a currency.
“The value of decentralized cryptocurrency bitcoin is only guaranteed for a certain limited period of time so if the
transaction process doesn’t complete within that window period of
of time, then the amount of bitcoin needed to cover the transaction can change,” Steam said.
“The amount it can change has been increasing recently to a point where it can be significantly different.”
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