Valve pulls support for the cryptocurrency on Steam

Dec 7, 2017 07:45 GMT  ·  By

Valve announced that it’s removing support for Bitcoin payments on its gaming platform Steam, only a couple of hours before the cryptocurrency surpassed $14,000 on Bitstamp.

Valve says there are two big reasons for no longer allowing Bitcoin payments on Steam, namely high fees and volatility in its value.

The company claims that transaction fees have increased to no less than $20, a huge value as compared to the initial fee of just $0.20 when Bitcoin was enabled for the first team on Steam.

“Unfortunately, Valve has no control over the amount of the fee,” the company says in the official announcement.

Bitcoin now worth more than $14,000

Valve also points to the volatility of Bitcoin as a reason to give up on the cryptocurrency, explaining that this could substantially affect customers who are buying games on Steam.

“This creates a problem for customers trying to purchase games with Bitcoin. When checking out on Steam, a customer will transfer x amount of Bitcoin for the cost of the game, plus y amount of Bitcoin to cover the transaction fee charged by the Bitcoin network,” Valve says.

“The value of Bitcoin is only guaranteed for a certain period of time so if the transaction doesn’t complete within that window of time, then the amount of Bitcoin needed to cover the transaction can change. The amount it can change has been increasing recently to a point where it can be significantly different.”

While Bitcoin support is going away for now, Valve says that at some point it could be re-added as a method of payment for games on Steam.

In the meantime, Bitcoin has reached a new record high of $14,047 on Bitstamp, only a few days after it exceeded $12,000 in value for the very first time. The cryptocurrency has recorded a huge growth this year from approximately $1,000 in January.