STEAM WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT PAYMENTS IN BITCOIN - IT INVOICES THE VOLATILITY AND PROCESSING COSTS OF THE CRYPTO-MONNAIE

The game platform Steam announced on Wednesday that it no longer accepts, as of today, payments in digital currency. She cited the "problems of high processing fees", but also "the volatility of the value of bitcoin".

In a statement released today, the Steam team said it has observed "a significant increase in transaction fees on the Bitcoin network." She indicated that these fees could wait up to $ 20 per transaction - while they were only about $ 0.20 when the company decided to accept the cryptocurrency payments in April 2016.

These fees would make "the purchase of games on Steam unreasonably expensive".
Too much volatility in Steam's eyes

Steam logo The other problem cited by the company is related to the volatility of Bitcoin, an asset whose price can "lose up to 25% of its value in a few days".

This depreciation would cause problems for customers who want to pay for their Bitcoin purchase.

The Steam team explained that these price changes sometimes required customers to transfer additional funds, in order to pay the full purchase price - thus creating new costs. Indeed, it was not uncommon that, due to a fall in price, the amount of Bitcoin needed to obtain a game increases "significantly".

When the company decided to take charge of Bitcoin payments in April 2016, the price of this asset was much more stable:

For Steam, it was "unreasonable to accept bitcoin as a means of payment". However, the company did not permanently close the door to Bitcoin, and indicated that it could re-evaluate its position and reintroduce this method of payment at a later date.

It seems impossible at the moment to know the consequences of this decision for society. Indeed, it has not disclosed the share of purchases that were through the digital currency.

While payments in Bitcoin are being democratized, the company has pointed out two elements that are often blamed on the currency: the large variations in its price, and the level of transaction costs it implies.

Let's hope that the high volatility of Bitcoin can be minimized thanks to the arrival of a new wave of institutional investors in this market, and that the transaction costs can be considerably reduced with the implementation of innovations such as the Lightning. Network.

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