Paying for your pizza in Bitcoin is cute – a mildly cool feat to humblebrag about. But footing the bill for your monthly satellite TV in the digital cash is way more legit.
If you’re a DISH Network subscriber, come this summer, you’ll be able to do just that. The multi-billion dollar satellite TV titan today announced that it will start accepting Bitcoin payments beginning in July.
Today’s DISH Bitcoin headlines might not seem like a big deal to you, but they’re music to Bitcoin backers’ ears. This news marks a pretty huge milestone for the world's first cryptocurrency, marking another pivotal step toward it becoming mainstream.
Related: How Bitcoin Is Fueling a New Payments Battlefield
Enough gushing: Let’s get back to the details. DISH said it has tasked Coinbase, a San Francisco-based global Bitcoin wallet and merchant service, with processing its Bitcoin payments. We’re not sure yet if there will be an extra fee for paying in Bitcoin. We hope not because that would definitely be a turnoff.
So why would a big-corporate fish like DISH throw its weight behind Bitcoin? For one, the content-provider is all about “choice.” So by providing a new payment option, DISH is allowing customers more selection -- a move that could help the company stand out from its lower-cost competitors like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Plus, the Blockbuster parent company can use it as a way to position itself as cutting-edge and “in touch” with what younger, streaming-savvy consumers want, a maneuver to keep current subscribers and attract new ones.
Related: Yelp Now Points Users to Businesses That Accept Bitcoin as Payment
“We always want to deliver choice and convenience for our customers and that includes the method they use to pay their bills,” Bernie Han, DISH Network’s chief executive officer CEO and executive vice president, said in a statement issued today. “Bitcoin is becoming a preferred way for some people to transact and we want to accommodate those individuals.”
In a about a month, when DISH’s first Bitcoin payments start flowing in (and they will), the Englewood, Colo.-based Fortune 200 corporation will join the ranks of a growing lineup of big-name early Bitcoin payment adopters, like OKCupid, Overstock.com, Reddit, TigerDirect and Wordpress. Not to mention the more than 50,000 other merchants also currently accepting the cryptocurrency.
Related: Square Market Now Takes Bitcoin Payments
DISH stands out from the pack, though, as it will soon own the bragging rights to being the biggest company in all of the world yet to accept Bitcoin. That is until another mega brand steps up and takes its place.
And one will. It’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of who.
Could it be eBay ? We’ll keep you posted.
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