Payment processor Stripe has announced that it’s end support for bitcoin payments in April, citing rising transaction fees and confirmation times, plus a decline in bitcoin revenues from companies that currently use Stripe acknowledge cryptocurrency payments.
“Our hope was that Bitcoin can get a universal, decentralized substrate for online transactions and help our customers enable buyers in places where had less plastic card penetration or use instances when credit card fees were prohibitive,” wrote Stripe’s Tom Karlo in a blog post.
However, Karlo notes that bitcoin has largely started out a currency into property since the company began processing bitcoin payments in 2019.
“Given the success the fact that Bitcoin community has achieved, it is hard to quibble while using the decisions that have been made during the trip,” he stated, but he noted that bitcoin’s evolution has led to a marked decline in its utility for everyday payments.
The company specifically pointed to bitcoin’s rising median transaction fee, which peaked often $34 in mid-December. Karlo said that transaction confirmation times have likewise become a difficulty, as the bitcoin price often fluctuates dramatically prior to when the network processes the payment.
Effective immediately, Stripe will start winding down its support for bitcoin, although firms that currently accept bitcoin with the company can continue to do so until April 23.
Stripe is not the first mainstream company to rescind support for bitcoin because of its evolution from the currency into a tool. Video game retailer Steam recently stopped accepting bitcoin payments, and Microsoft briefly did also, but the tech giant later reversed its stance.
Although Stripe is ending support for bitcoin, Karlo stressed that company is still “very optimistic about cryptocurrencies overall,” in particular the Lightning Network, Ethereum, and OmiseGO.
He also revealed that the company will add support for stellar, a job to which Stripe contributed seed funding, and the man added that your firm “can certainly imagine enabling support” for cryptocurrencies in the future.”
“It’s possible that Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, an additional Bitcoin variant, will see a way to achieve significant popularity whilst keeping settlement times and transaction fees minimal,” he concluded. “Bitcoin itself may be viable for payments again sometime soon. And, however, there’ll be more ideas and technologies from the years ahead.”