Steam customers can no longer pay in bitcoins

Customers of the game platform Steam can no longer pay in bitcoins. Valve has announced that. The reason is that bitcoin fluctuates too much in value, causing prices for games to vary too much from day to day. Transaction costs have also risen too much.

Valve paid up to $20 in transaction fees for processing a payment in bitcoin a few days ago, compared to $20 cents when Steam started supporting bitcoin. That, in combination with the fluctuations in the value of the digital currency, makes bitcoin no longer a good option for payments, Valve believes.

Bitcoin’s value recently surpassed $10,000 for the first time. Last week, the price briefly dropped from $11,000 to $9,500 and is now at $14,000. Due to these fluctuations, the prices of games also change continuously and according to Valve, that is not desirable on Steam. In addition, the company reports problems for customers with underpayments and high transaction costs.

Steam has been offering the option to pay in bitcoins for a year and a half. This is done via payment provider Bitpay. Game publishers did not have to attach a bitcoin price to games, but Bitpay converted it each time. Valve says it continues to evaluate whether it makes sense again to add bitcoin as a payment option to Steam.