In a statement, by development studio Valve, which runs the very popular and well known Gaming service, Steam, said “high fees and volatility” was the core reason why they stopped accepting Bitcoins.

Steam started accepting payments in bitcoins in April this year.

At that time, each Bitcoin was worth about $450 (£335). Now, each coin is worth about $16,000.

The moment-by-moment shifts in value were a problem, Valve said, because of the narrow window customers had to complete a purchase using bitcoins.

If a Bitcoin-based transaction was prolonged, the value of the coins being transferred could change “significantly”, it said.

In these cases, customers had to transfer more bitcoins to make the payment, or get a refund. And either option would result in the customer paying more exchange fees, currently about $20.

Some customers adding bitcoins had even been caught out a second time as the value changed again.

Bitcoin continued to rise in value this week and looks set to break the $17,000 barrier soon.