Stripe announced today that it will not longer be supporting bitcoin payments starting April (via TechCrunch). The company started accepting bitcoin payments back in 2014, but has come to a certain realization lately.
In a blog post, the company said today that it cryptocurrency has become far less useful as a method of payment, and because of bitcoin revenue being on the decline, customer interest has been on the decline also. “Bitcoin has evolved to become better-suited to being an asset than being a means of exchange,” said Stripe.
Stripe specifically pointed out a large increase in transaction confirmation times, high transaction failure rates and high fees as some of the biggest reasons why it determined bitcoin has become less functional for use of payment on its platform. “Empirically, there are fewer and fewer use cases for which accepting or paying with bitcoin makes sense,” said Stripe.
While Stripe may be the latest to announce this, it certainly isn’t the only company. Valve stopped accepting bitcoin last month. The company cited transaction costs and high volatility as some of the reasons for abandoning support for the cryptocurrency. It’s definitely not just companies either. Many governments around the world are considering cryptocurrency regulations or outright bans.
While Stripe has ruled out support for bitcoin, it isn’t taking cryptocurrency out altogether. The company noted that bitcoin could become a viable payment method again in the future, and mentioned some specific cryptocurrencies like Lightning, OmiseGO, Ethereum and Stellar as some project’s it’s keeping in mind. “We will continue to pay close attention to the ecosystem and to look for opportunities to help our customers by adding support for cryptocurrencies and new distributed protocols in the future,” it said.
