cryptoglobe.com
On Thursday (May 23), AT&T, the world's largest telecommunications company, announced that it now allows customers to pay their bills via cryptocurrency.
American multinational conglomerate AT&T, which is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is "the world's largest telecommunications company, the second largest provider of mobile telephone services, and the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States through AT&T Communications." It is also the parent company of media conglomerate WarnerMedia, which makes it "the world's largest media and entertainment company in terms of revenue."
A few minutes ago, it announced that from today it is going to accept crypto for online payment payments with the help of crypto payment processor BitPay. This makes AT&T "the first major U.S. mobile carrier" to offer the option of paying via cryptocurrency. The company says that customers may select BitPay as a payment option when using either the AT&T website or the AT&T mobile app to pay their bills.
BitPay, which is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in May 2011 was founded by Tony Gallippi and Stephen Pair. The goal was "to make it easy for businesses to accept bitcoin payments.," and by September 2013, over 10,000 merchants were accepting Bitcoin (BTC) with the help of BitPay. Currently, the company claims to be "the largest bitcoin payment processor in the world, serving industry-leading merchants on six continents." Amongst its backers are Index Ventures, Founders Fund, and Felicis Ventures.
BitPay allows businesses to accept two cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. After taking a 1% processing fee, BitPay can settle with the merchant in eight fiat currencies (with "direct bank deposit in 38 countries") and five cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Gemini Dollar, USD Coin, and Paxos Standard). The option of receiving payment in USDC or GUSD was added on 15 October 2018, and support for settlement in Paxos Standard (PAX) was added on 20 November 2018.
Kevin McDorman, vice president, AT&T Communications Finance Business Operations, had this to say:
“We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services. 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.”