Rumor: Steam is to Integrate Bitcoin Payments Soon
According to a leak from the Steam Translation Server posted on the Steam subreddit, the platform intends to introduce purchasing for Bitcoin. As for now, Steam works only with credit cards, its own pre-paid gift cards, and PayPal.
However, as the rumor has it, Steam is going to use services provided by BitPay to settle transactions. BitPay, in its turn, is a cryptocurrency counterpart of PayPal, and provides payment processing services for Bitcoin.
Screenshot from Steam’s Translation Server by Reddit user Haoose
Notably, according to the information currently available, Bitcoin payments will not be refundable. In case a user wants a payback on purchases effected with Bitcoin, the corresponding Steam wallet will get a credit.
Valve, the company owning Steam, has not been quite friendly to Bitcoin in recent years. Though many companies, including such giants as Microsoft, gradually embrace Bitcoin and allow users to purchase at least some of its services or products with Bitcoins, Valve never considered accepting cryptocurrency payments. Two years ago, when answering during an AMA session on Reddit, Valve’s Gabe Newell made it clear that it is very unlikely that the company would accept cryptocurrency. Answering a user question, would the company accept a virtual currency, Newell said:
“There are two related issues: one is treating a crypto-currency as another currency type that we support and the broader issue is monetary behaviors of game economies. The first issue is more about crypto-currencies stabilizing as mediums of account.”
Steam is a distribution service for software and computer games. The service functions as an activator, downloader, updater, and news provider for both Valve’s and third parties’ games hosted on the platform. The third-party providers partnering with Valve include: Epic Games, THQ, 2K Games, Activision, Capcom, Codemasters, Eidos Interactive, 1Ă‘, GSC Game World, id Software, SEGA, Atari, Rockstar Games, Telltale Games, Ubisoft, Bethesda Softworks, Paradox Interactive, etc.
ForkLog reached Bitpay for comments as to confirm or deny the rumor, however, the company opted not to comment what it called “Internet rumors”:
“We don’t comment on Internet rumors, so I’m afraid I can’t help you here,” the company’s press officer replied, thus neither confirming, nor denying the information.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
<Related posts
- #fExit Campaign to Raise Awareness of Blockchain-Based Social Networks
- Blockstream’s Christian Decker: It’s Really Hard to Inject Usefulness Into Proof-Of-Work
- Stepan Gershuni: You Will Be Able to Buy Something With Bitcoin, Not so Sure About Other Currencies
- Bitcoin Needs Catastrophe to Succeed
- Non-Profit Founder Brandon Morey: With Crypto, Toughest Barrier for Larger Companies Is Accounting
- Institutional Players Ramping up Investments in Bitcoin: What’s in It for Crypto-Industry
- Inbar Preiss About Women in Blockchain Industry
- DeFi Passed $1B Total Value Locked: Grain of Salt