Dish Network Now Accepts Bitcoin Cash
Leila Chin
US satellite service provider Dish Network announced it is now accepting bitcoin cash as another payment method.
Dish Network, one of the first companies to accept bitcoin as an alternative mode of payment, said its customers can now use both digital currencies to pay for monthly subscriptions and pay-per-view movies. To do so, customers must send the exact amount of bitcoin or bitcoin cash needed to make a one-time payment either on its website or set-top box.
“We’ve added Bitcoin Cash just as we chose to accept Bitcoin to serve customers who have adopted a new way of doing business. We have a steady volume of customers paying with cryptocurrency each month, and Bitpay will allow us to continue offering more choice and convenience to our customers,” John Swieringa, Dish executive vice president and chief operating officer, said in a statement.
Swieringa said the reason for accepting bitcoin cash is for the same reason they adopted bitcoin in 2014.
Aside from that, Dish Network said it is migrating from its previous payment processor to BitPay as this will deliver greater “choice and convenience” to users.
“Our goal for DISH Network is a seamless transition to BitPay so all customers who are currently paying for services with Bitcoin continue to have the option to pay with Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash. Cryptocurrency is an increasingly popular way for consumers to make purchases online as it reduces credit card fraud and is cheaper for the merchants,” Sonny Singh, BitPay chief commercial officer, said.
Bitcoin is one of the biggest cryptocurrency payment providers. In April, the firm earned $40 million in a Series B funding round with participation by venture capital companies Aquiline Technology Growth (ATG) and Menlo Ventures. ATG headlined the fundraising activity, according to Stephen Pair, BitPay CEO.
“Bitpay CEO Stephen Pair disputed that the company had any trouble fundraising, saying that it had to ‘expand’ the round from a planned $30 million to the final $40 million total due to high demand,” a report by Recode said at that time.
“We wanted to make sure that anybody who wanted to participate could, and announcing it serves that purpose,” Pair added.
The company has been looking at different investments in several blockchain startups for the last 18 months, Tyler Sosin, a partner who is leading Menlo’s crypto network, had said. But he did not divulge the amount Menlo contributed to the funding round.
Earlier, Dish Network said in a filing that Steven Swain, its chief financial officer, would step down on August 22 to become the finance chief of Brookdale Senior Living. Swain also resigned as the CFO of unit Dish DBS Corp.
The company did not provide more information on the resignation. But Swain is expected to assume his new role at Brookdale Senior next month.
Swain joined the Dish Network family in 2011 as vice president of corporate financial planning and analysis. Prior to that, he spent more than 15 years in the telecommunications sector.
