The North American Bitcoin Conference is no longer allowing people to pay for tickets with Bitcoin. The conference, set to take place in March, has implemented this policy due to “network congestion and manual processing” problems.
The organizers were able to accept cryptocurrencies for the event up to fourteen days before the event. Unfortunately, Bitcoin is not possible for last-minute buyers because of “print deadlines.”
The conference’s organizer, Moe Levin, told Bitcoin.com, “We wish this was easier, but no ticketing options exist which can handle large volumes of ticket sales, and transaction fees on the Bitcoin blockchain exceed $30 at certain times of the day.” The conference’s team ran into issues using cryptocurrencies at lower transaction fees. This is made more difficult because ticketing services like Eventbrite do not accept bitcoin yet as a payment method.
Due to the slow transaction times and high processing fees, many users are started to question the merits of accepting cryptocurrencies. Microsoft temporarily stopped using the cryptocurrency in the company’s online store due to fluctuating values. Steam, a video game purchasing platform, has stated that it would not accept bitcoin, also due to high fees.
photo credit: Flickr
