Amid the growing concerns over the regulation of cryptocurrencies around the World, Microsoft stopped accepting bitcoin payments for Microsoft store. The company reportedly had removed the ability to add money to Microsoft Account using Bitcoin owing to the negative sentiments surrounding the Crypto market.
The removal though seems to be a temporary one and Microsoft soon resumed accepting bitcoin payments for purchases made on its Store.
Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the move, saying,
“We’ve restored Bitcoin as a payment option in our store after working with our provider to ensure lower Bitcoin amounts would be redeemable by customers.
For the record, this is not the first time that Microsoft pulled the trigger down on Bitcoin transactions as the company had temporarily stopped Bitcoin transactions two years ago in 2016 as well only to bring it back a few days later.
Reason for stopping Bitcoin transactions
Bitcoin has seen unprecedented interest from investors and traders in the last few months. Its price has swung wildly over the last 3 months with most exchanges struggling to cope up with the surged demand of sellers as well as buyers. Looking to cash in on the current trading demand, the surge in the transaction fees has made smaller transactions almost nil. Hence, by the time a payment goes through, the price of bitcoin could dip, causing companies to lose money from the transaction. Users have had to make repeated payments to complete the transactions, thereby incurring an average fee of 31.43 USD
What has made matter worse is the slow turnaround of the exchanges. Slow transaction processing times, means, that by the time a transaction is processed, a retailer stands to lose money if Bitcoin price goes down during the transaction time.
Realizing the above challenges, it looks like Microsoft decided to stop accepting Bitcoin payments. However, the company restored the payment option after working with providers to ensure lower bitcoin amounts would be redeemable by customers.
We do not know if Microsoft could again stop bitcoin transactions, assuming the cryptocurrency’s months-long volatility. What we can advise that it is best to stay away from Cryptocurrencies until we see definitive regulations in place.
