Steam will no longer support Bitcoin as a payment method as a result of “high fees and volatility”, Valve announced Wednesday.
“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,” Valve said in a post on Steam. “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.”
The open source cryptocurrency has seen its value increase dramatically throughout 2017, beginning the year valued at roughly $1,000 USD and reaching a new high of $12,000 USD this week.
Valve explained that the value of Bitcoin is only guaranteed for a certain period of time, and if a transaction is not completed with the time frame, the amount of Bitcoin needed for the transaction can change. While these discrepancies are normally refunded or require an additional payment from the customer when using a more traditional currency, the high transaction fees associated with Bitcoin make these solutions unfeasible.
“At this point, it has become untenable to support Bitcoin as a payment option. We may re-evaluate whether Bitcoin makes sense for us and for the Steam community at a later date.”
Valve originally added support for Bitcoin for Steam purchases in 2016 in a partnership with bitpay.
