Stripe, the payments specialist employed by many ticketing and events operators, is to cease supporting Bitcoin transactions.
The company, which became the first major payments company to support Bitcoin in 2014, said fewer online merchants wanted to accept the cryptocurrency because of fluctuations leading to price discrepancies. It added that Bitcoin users now see it largely as an “asset” to be traded rather than a payment method.
Stripe offers a series of extensions for ticketing operators, and counts Dice.fm as a partner. Payments via Stripe are offered by ticketing and events operators such as TicketSource, Eventzilla, Eventbee and Ticketbooth.
Customers of the payments firm, which was founded in Ireland but is now based in the US, pay a fee to Stripe each time it processes a payment. However, Bitcoin payments will cease in April.
“By the time the transaction is confirmed, fluctuations in Bitcoin price mean that it’s for the ‘wrong’ amount,” Stripe product manager Tom Karlo wrote in a blog.
Bitcoin transaction fees had also risen “a great deal” resulting in a decrease in demand from Stripe’s customers to accept Bitcoin payments, he said.
“For a regular Bitcoin transaction, a fee of tens of US dollars is common, making Bitcoin transactions about as expensive as bank wires,” Karlo added.
“Because of this, we’ve seen the desire from our customers to accept Bitcoin decrease. And of the businesses that are accepting Bitcoin on Stripe, we’ve seen their revenues from Bitcoin decline substantially.”
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