The computer and technology company Microsoft will accept bitcoin as a form of payment again. The service was suspended temporarily since last Sunday, January 7.
According to sources Microsoft temporarily stopped all payments with bitcoin in its online store due to the price volatility and the high commissions caused by the high traffic of transactions in the blockchain and the spam attack occurred in the past days. The company began accepting the popular cryptocurrency in 2014 with the BitPay platform as an intermediary to load funds into Microsoft accounts, which allow them to acquire applications, games, and Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox products.
An unnamed spokeswoman for the company contacted by Australian media News, confirmed that the service was temporarily suspended but that it will resume normally as of today thanks to an agreement in the price of commissions negotiated with the team responsible for the payment platform.
We have restored bitcoin as a payment option in our store after working with our provider to ensure that minor amounts of bitcoin are redeemable by our customers.
Microsoft
Other companies related to the world of technology have had a relationship similar to that of Microsoft with cryptocurrencies. Steam, the online platform for distribution and updating of computer games belonging to the videogame company Valve, creators of games such as Half-Life and Counter Strike, accepted payments using bitcoins on its website since April 2016.
The platform allowed to accept payments in its online store using the popular crypto, calculated on the basis of the local currency at the time of purchase. Therefore, in the transaction the company received the equivalent of the price in fiat currency and the consumer could make use of its digital currency.
At the beginning of December 2017, Steam stopped accepting bitcoin as a payment method, alleging the same reasons that led Microsoft to suspend transactions temporarily.
In the official statement, the team explained that it has had problems processing videogame purchases using the cryptocurrency because of the high prices in the transaction fees that must be assumed by the company. These came to represent at that time up to 50% more of the value of the game, for example, in a purchase of $ 40, the fee for using bitcoin could be up to $ 20 that should be assumed by the company. It is unknown if this decision will be temporary.