The emphasis is on the past tense there, as Twitch silently removed the option which allowed users to pay in Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash.
Twitch cited the same reasons that companies such as Expedia highlighted for why it removed support. That it was too much of a volatile currency to justify making a loss on subscriptions.
Additionally, the number of users that made use of the option was disproportionately small when compared to other payment methods.
Bad news for blockchain in game streaming?
While this has resulted in an irate crypto-enthusiast streaming community, it this bad news for blockchain? No. Users still have ways with which to bring blockchain technology and, by extension, ERC20 tokens into their streaming experience.
For streamers interested in having their own minted ERC20 tokens, Twitch still provides support for Fan Bits for those looking to mint their own tokens which stream viewers can buy freely. According to Fan Bits, this includes over 22,500 different minted virtual tokens that viewers can bid on.
As for ERC721 tokens, and streamers interested in using blockchain for merchandising or receiving gifts from streamers, the loss of crypto payments doesn’t exactly pose a threat to its progress.
For example, WAX has been continuing to entice streamers and gamers to make use of its #WAXonStream contests. We’re seeing far more streamers making use of blockchain than ever before, as we can tell by just how ubiquitous the hashtag had become.
We’ve even seen this same trending from the upticks in performance from the WAX token, steadily rising by 6% over this month.
With these products in mind, should we be concerned about the loss of BTC and BCH from Twitch? It certainly doesn’t seem that way.
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