[2019-05-23] AT&T Teams With BitPay to Accept Bill Payments in Crypto

[mich]

https://www.coindesk.com/att-teams-with-bitpay-to-accept-bill-payments-in-crypto?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=coindesk&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=Organic%20

AT&T’s Death Star logo may have really been a moon after all, with the telecom giant announcing Thursday that it will accept bill payments in the form of crypto by way of BitPay.

As it stands, the crypto option isn’t being extended to other AT&T services, such as buying phones or other devices, and as of yet BitPay won’t work in AT&T’s storefronts. That said, the company noted in a statement that its customers use cryptocurrency and that the new offering is intended to give them their preferable option.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services,” said Kevin McDorman, vice president at AT&T. “We have customers who use cryptocurrency, and we are happy we can offer them a way to pay their bills with the method they prefer.”

An AT&T spokesperson told us

    “BitPay provides payment processing services for merchants and is one of the largest bitcoin payment processors in the world. Our customers are on this platform and we are always looking for different ways to better serve our customers.”

It might be time for bitcoin whales break open those cold wallets and pay off their AT&T bills for the next twenty years.

AT&T is my provider so maybe might be time to register with BitPay

[1715317438]

1715317438

[1715317438]

1715317438

[1715317438]

1715317438

[joniboini]

Nice news. Hopefully, more people will use crypto to pay for AT&T bills. That's what called adoption.

It would be a waste if there's no one who uses this feature.

[CryptoBry]

Nice news. Hopefully, more people will use crypto to pay for AT&T bills. That's what called adoption. It would be a waste if there's no one who uses this feature.

Indeed, this is a big good news especially for the whole bitcoin community. We need more merchants big and small to accept bitcoin as mode of payment in their business and hopefully with AT&T onboarding this can attract more players within and without the telecom industry. However, this is just one side because it is very critical that there would be a sizable number of customers who will opt to use bitcoin in paying their bills or regular obligations with the company. It would be nice if AT&T will launch a special promotion to entice people to use bitcoin in paying to AT&T.

[1Referee]

Nice news. Hopefully, more people will use crypto to pay for AT&T bills. That's what called adoption.

It would be a waste if there's no one who uses this feature.

Good news till you try to use BitPay's payment form that isn't supported by most wallet clients. If you find a wallet client that does support their payment form, there is no Segwit. One big mess. It's just retarded. Instead of making it easy to pay with Bitcoin, they made it harder. And then they also charge you an additional 'transaction processing fee'.

In order to tempt people to use Bitcoin over fiat, it has to offer more convenience and not lead to unnecessary hassle.

Someone on Reddit suggested that you can top up your ATT account through Bitrefill, which accepts both main-chain payments and Lightning payments. Not sure how it works since I'm in Europe, but if it offers the same functionality, definitely use this instead of BitPay.

[Jating]

They're too late, as far as I know, the Philippines coins.ph have been accepting bitcoin and accepts Telecom payments. You can even top up your existing pre-paid SIM card using coins.ph service as well.

And there is no additional charge as compare to Bitpay, you can even get a rebate every time you used their services.

Let's see, different crowds, different reactions.

[Pamadar]

Good news for Bitcoin supporters especially to those who are not here just for the sake of investment, but also  open hands to many adoptions that will lead this chain to a much bigger success, this step from at&t will open more doors to every businesses to also embrace this system, bringing more potential users and followers to this chain.

[BitHodler]

It's definitely a great form of marketing to have a $200 billion market cap company allowing people to pay with Bitcoin. Sure, it's through a third party payment processor, but it's still a more than welcome event.

I hope that they understand who the different groups of people holding Bitcoin are, because if they expect a surge in revenue just because of this, they will be faced with a big disappointment.

I have seen in the past where companies blame the volatility for ditching Bitcoin (which is nonsense because they use a third party payment processor), but we all know that not enough revenue (if any at all) was being generated.

[squatter]

Good news till you try to use BitPay's payment form that isn't supported by most wallet clients. If you find a wallet client that does support their payment form, there is no Segwit. One big mess.

Most wallets still don't support BIP70?! I guess I wouldn't know. I've been using Electrum as my everyday wallet for years now and never missed a beat when Bitpay implemented BIP70.

And then they also charge you an additional 'transaction processing fee'.

That does piss me off. They charge everyone an additional fee ~ equal to the cost of sweeping the output in the next block, but they never sweep anything immediately. I think they're making money off the "network fee" -- and of course, giving small blockers the middle finger.

The other thing that pisses me off is their refund policy. Whichever direction the price moves, they screw you on the exchange rate. If the price goes up, they give you less coins back. If the price goes down, you get your coins back -- minus another "network fee" of course.

Someone on Reddit suggested that you can top up your ATT account through Bitrefill, which accepts both main-chain payments and Lightning payments. Not sure how it works since I'm in Europe, but if it offers the same functionality, definitely use this instead of BitPay.

I'm not positive, but I think that only works for prepaid phones (not bill pay). Bitrefill also charges obscene markups on a lot of their cards -- and seemingly no markup on others -- so it's worth looking closely at the price.

[dunfida]

They're too late, as far as I know, the Philippines coins.ph have been accepting bitcoin and accepts Telecom payments. You can even top up your existing pre-paid SIM card using coins.ph service as well.

And there is no additional charge as compare to Bitpay, you can even get a rebate every time you used their services.

Let's see, different crowds, different reactions.

Its never been too late IMHO! Philippines adoption is an another story and if we do talk about the scope of AT&T then i would definitely say that this is really a good news.

I would love to see more companies would able to accept or adopt Crypto when it comes to Bill payments.It would really be a big convenience.

[bbc.reporter]

Good news till you try to use BitPay's payment form that isn't supported by most wallet clients. If you find a wallet client that does support their payment form, there is no Segwit. One big mess.

Most wallets still don't support BIP70?! I guess I wouldn't know. I've been using Electrum as my everyday wallet for years now and never missed a beat when Bitpay implemented BIP70.

BIP70 is bad for your privacy, all wallets should not support BIP70, according to some people. Also, there are some people who call Bitpay a cancer to bitcoin and hostile because of its support of segwit2x and its encouragement to use bitcoin cash.


BIP70 introduces the requirement on developers to support legacy public-key infrastructure dependencies with known track records of vulnerabilities (openssl and heartbleed, etc…). Additionally, widespread implementation of BIP70 introduces an exposure to increased risk of AML/KYC surveillance and monitoring of on-chain transactions and more effective blacklists

Source https://blog.samouraiwallet.com/post/169222582782/bitpay-qr-codes-are-no-longer-valid-important

[1Referee]

Most wallets still don't support BIP70?! I guess I wouldn't know. I've been using Electrum as my everyday wallet for years now and never missed a beat when Bitpay implemented BIP70.

I have to use Electrum's desktop client to pay for goods through BitPay, which sucks. There are a bunch mobile wallet clients that do support it, but then you have to use wallets from big blockers that intentionally recommend you a much higher fee than necessary. The bitcoin dot com wallet has been doing this for a while now.

That does piss me off. They charge everyone an additional fee ~ equal to the cost of sweeping the output in the next block, but they never sweep anything immediately. I think they're making money off the "network fee" -- and of course, giving small blockers the middle finger.

For sure. They tend to wait for the network congestion to lessen and then utilize less than half of what people paid to move the funds.

Too bad there is not a competent enough competitor in the states to knock BitPay off its throne. 

[figmentofmyass]

Too bad there is not a competent enough competitor in the states to knock BitPay off its throne. 

i'm interested to see what kind of a splash flexa makes. bitpay never bagged big merchants like starbucks, nordstrom, whole foods etc so that's pretty major news in its own right. with applepay and its rivals gaining so much traction now, i think flexa is well positioned to eat into bitpay's market share as more and more people switch from plastic to smartphone payments.