Pay with Bitcoin on your XBOX?

Investing their cash in Bitcoin? The answer is no. However, Microsoft could accept Bitcoin as a payment method on its Xbox ecosystem. No, Microsoft is clearly not ready to invest the billions of dollars it has in cash in Bitcoin. The publisher’s general counsel, Brad Smith, confirmed this in February, shortly after Tesla’s investment.

However, the American firm does not prohibit itself from accepting BTC as a means of payment. Microsoft is currently conducting a survey of users of its Xbox online store.

Nothing certifies at this stage that such a payment feature will actually see the light of day. In the short term, it is unlikely. A user of the American forum Reddit specifies that this survey concerns only a small part of Xbox users.

This one is indeed addressed to the members of the Xbox Insider program, that is to say the beta-testers of the updates of the game console of Microsoft. Clearly, the giant is still studying the possibility of updating its platform.

Bitcoin as a means of payment? The option already exists in some companies and local markets, especially in South America. However, this is not the first use of the cryptocurrency.

“We estimate that less than 30 percent of transactional activity in bitcoin is related to payment for goods and services, with the rest largely used as financial investments,” Deutsche Bank estimates.

Volatility is a problematic factor in promoting the democratization of Bitcoin as a means of payment. While this may diminish over time, it is not yet a reality. And the German bank considers that “Bitcoin should remain ultra-volatile. “

A rush from Microsoft to offer Xbox purchases in BTC is therefore unlikely. Especially since this is not the publisher’s first venture into this sector. The publisher accepted in 2014 that Microsoft accounts could be credited in Bitcoin.

In 2016, the U.S. firm ended crypto on the Microsoft Store. But in January 2018, Bitcoin was already making a comeback. But what share of purchases does the first of the cryptocurrencies represent? The software giant does not disclose figures.

But with a valuation that has been flirting with $60,000 in recent days, it’s not clear whether Bitcoin will play a major role in payments in the future. Other cryptocurrencies are doing a better job of that, chief among them stablecoins.