Steam's Ending of Bitcoin Payments "Another Nail in the Coffin" for the Would-Be Future of Money, Says Insider

Remember in May when I suggested the rising value of Bitcoin actually made it less and less valuable as a currency? Now that's even more true:

The company detailed the decision on Steam's official blog, explaining that recent fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin have made using it on Steam unreasonably difficult and costly for consumers...  The problem, Valve says, comes when a customer transfers Bitcoin during a purchase to cover the cost of the game and Bitcoin's transaction fee. Ideally, the value of Bitcoin would remain stagnant from the transaction's start to its finish, but recent jumps in the currency's volatility mean that the Bitcoin value of a purchase can rapidly change before some transactions are able to finish.

"I would say it's another nail in the coffin of using bitcoin for paying for things rather than as a speculative Ponzi scheme (sorry, 'sovereign store of value')," says Edmund Edgar, a longtime Bitcoin expert, "but that coffin already had a lot of nails in it. At this point the people still using bitcoin already expect it to be useless for payments, and the people who want to do payments have moved on to other systems like Bitcoin Cash." (A "hard fork" spinoff of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash is used far less than Bitcoin, in itself a niche -- about 20,000 daily transactions to Bitcoin's ~300,000 a day.)

What happens next? I wouldn't be surprised if the Bitcoin value takes a huge and painful dive:

Why? Because the market for Bitcoin -- primarily technophile libertarian males -- has a roughly 1:1 overlap with Steam's 125 million+ userbase of hardcore gamers. But if even one of the world’s biggest markets for virtual goods (i.e. games, in-game items) won’t accept this virtual currency, what hope does Bitcoin have of ever becoming an actual currency?

Hat tip: Game industry vet Emily Greer.

Comments

[DanCoyote]

LOL Anything that seems too good to be true, is probably too good to be true. https://youtu.be/_siQqiT48Tc

[Amanda]

When I first moved to this corner of Texas, there was a craze over Emu's. People were raising them, selling eggs and breeding pairs back and forth while talking about how many things can be made from Emus. The problem is when the eggs cost thousands of dollars and the animals more, no one will eat that egg or turn the animal into boots or food. Anyone still in it at the end lost everything. They were turning the animals loose because they couldn't afford to feed them. Bit coin is the same. Those who got in early and have taken their profits out will be fine but latecomers will lose.

[sirhc deSantis]

Just hit 15k ... popcorn time :) Going to be fun if the 'sell short' plan hits a snag.

[John K.]

No one really knows if it is going to go up or go down...just try and enjoy the ride!

[shan]

no one can really tell, but i have invest and i do have patience.