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Digital gaming giant Valve has announced that some 18 months afterward adding the ability to buy games on Steam with Bitcoin, it will no longer take BTC as a method of payment. The original decision to accept the cryptocurrency was never seen equally a brand-or-suspension affair for Bitcoin's credence as legal tender, but Steam's authorisation of PC digital game distribution and the overlap between PC game enthusiasts and BTC users made it a loftier-profile win dorsum in 2022. (To be clear, we're not saying that at that place'south a high degree of overlap between gamers and cryptocurrency enthusiasts, so much as nosotros're arguing BTC is probably more popular with gamers than it is with, say, suburban Atlanta retirees.)

There are several reasons why Valve has stopped supporting BTC. First, the fees required to process transactions on the Bitcoin network have jumped, upwardly to as high as $xx, compared with just 20 cents when Valve began accepting the cryptocurrency. 2d, the volatility surrounding Bitcoin has become a significant business organisation. The currency's value has skyrocketed since the outset of the year, but it's as well go much more than volatile. Third — and this is an event we've discussed when talking about Bitcoin's several forks since August ane — it can take a long time to procedure transactions on the network.

BTCInfo-Transactions

BTCInfo shows transaction fees peaking at $19.20, though not within the past calendar week. Today'due south listed fee of $7.34 is still much higher than the $0.2 Valve started with.

Under normal circumstances, the customer pays for a game with the advisable amount of Bitcoin plus the transaction fee. This works well when BTC values are roughly steady, and transaction volumes are small plenty for reasonable processing times and low fees. The trouble is, that hasn't been the instance for the past few months. BTC values are only guaranteed for a certain menses of time; if a transaction doesn't complete within that window, the amount of BTC required to cover the transaction can change. Lately, it's been irresolute a lot. Valve writes:

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. This year, nosotros've seen increasing number of customers get into this country. With the transaction fee being and then high right now, it is not feasible to refund or ask the client to transfer the missing balance (which itself runs the risk of underpayment again, depending on how much the value of Bitcoin changes while the Bitcoin network processes the additional transfer).

In other words, it's non merely that the price of BTC is volatile, transaction fees have jumped, or that information technology takes longer to complete a transaction — it'southward that all three of these things have happened simultaneously, resulting in a scenario in which Valve doesn't want to take on the responsibility of refunding transaction fees information technology didn't choose to levy (or cull the price of levying), while recognizing that repeatedly stacking these fees on users for circumstances beyond their control is similarly untenable.

BTC-Price3

Bitcoin's cost on Coinbase, from Nov 7 to December 7.

Volatile is certainly the advisable discussion for BTC'southward activity. On November 7, Coinbase recorded a per-BTC toll of $7,095. From that appointment until now, the currency has fallen as depression equally $v,871 and topped out briefly, today, at merely over $16,000 (Bitcoin prices have varied widely today from commutation to exchange, which is why you'll encounter figures equally loftier equally $19K on other exchanges). Valve notes information technology might endeavor supporting BTC again at some point in the hereafter, and that information technology will continue working with customers on issues related to transaction fees and underpayments.