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Steam Ends Support For Bitcoin (polygon.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the up-next dept.

Valve is ending support for Steam purchases made with bitcoin, the company said today, citing "high fees and volatility" in the value of the cryptocurrency. In a statement, it said: "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."

3 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Valve are not fools by erapert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're no longer accepting BTC so that they're not stuck holding the bag after the bubble pops-- which will be any day now it looks like.

  2. Re:Bitcoin is stupid. by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only people pushing tulip comparisons are bank shills like Chase CEO.

    You're right, it's a dumb comparison.

    Bitcoins are more like Beanie Babies.
    =Smidge=

  3. Re:Questions by kiminator · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bitcoin miners perform the processing required to process transactions. When a bitcoin transaction is submitted, it is submitted along with a "bid" for how much the person is willing to pay for the transaction. Miners then prioritize incoming transactions based upon how much is bid. If the bid is too low, it will end up at the end of a long queue and might take hours to finish (if ever).

    The optimal bid amount, then, is determined by the computing power of the Bitcoin network combined with how much processing power it actually takes to process each transaction and how many transactions there are. Right now, bids above about 150 Satoshis per byte (which works out to just under $5 per transaction on average at current prices) finish relatively quickly (typically under 30 minutes). Bids below that take an increasingly long time to commit.

    This high transaction cost is a function of the poor scaling of the Bitcoin algorithm to large numbers of transactions. It's one reason among many why I think Bitcoins are an absolutely abysmal medium of exchange, and why I question the entire concept of a blockchain-based currency system.