Valve May Soon Allow Bitcoin Purchases on Steam

Bitcoins: the online currency that caught the world by storm in 2008, was kind of forgotten about after the initial awareness wave washed over, and is still forgotten about today, because… well… they haven’t really done what they promised they’d do. The idea was to revolutionize the economy by including an international, purely digital currency… that was valuable because the creator said so? Point is, it never really caught on, so it could never get valuable, because a currency is only worth what you can buy with it.

However, those bitcoins your grandmother gave you because all she knew about you was that you like computers and it seemed vaguely technical might be worth a little bit more to you soon--as some sharp-eyed redditors have noticed some new translation strings that hint at the idea that Steam might soon accept Bitcoin as an alternative to more conventional currencies.

Here’s the new translation strings:

bitcoin_authorization_explanation
Bitcoin transactions are authorized through the BitPay website. Click the button below to open a new web browser to initiate the transaction.
bitcoin_payment_tips_header
Tips for Bitcoin customers
bitcoin_payment_tips_text
This process can take up to 60 seconds. To avoid purchasing failures, please do not hit your back button or close the bitpay window before the process is complete.

Seems pretty on the nose from my perspective, but then, Valve is sort of a disorganized mess, so, it’s not impossible this is just one employee's pet project that may never see completion. Still, the idea is… well… I don’t want to say ‘exciting’, but it’d certainly shake things up. Putting games on the bitcoin would certainly help jack up their value…

Well, we’ll have to see.