With more than a decade passing from bitcoin advent and developing different types of cryptocurrencies and despite weaknesses of this field in competition with the existing common payment methods, different businesses are accepting it as a payment method. AT&T, the American telecommunication giant, recently announced that it accepts online payment of telephone bills using cryptocurrency. This capability has been provided in cooperation of this company with BitPay cryptocurrency exchange center. BitPay is one of well-known of cryptocurrency-to-currency exchange which is used by more than twenty thousand businesses in the world. Now, AT&T can investigate the bills paid by cryptocurrencies and take measure about it through a platform BitPay has provided. This company is the first telecommunication operator in the U.S. which has implemented such a procedure. According to Kevin McDorman, vice president at AT&T Communications Finance Business Operations, this company has customers who use cryptocurrencies, and this company is grateful to be able to offer its customers their favorite method. AT&T customers can pay their bills after logging in their user account by selecting BitPay.
Moreover, this payment method has been provided in an application for AT&T users called myAT&T. AT&T has not determined a specific cryptocurrency for payment, but the list of cryptocurrencies changeable in BitPay include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Gemini Dollars (GUSD)), Paxos (PAX) and Circle USD Coin (USDC). Although AT&T has introduced itself as the first company in the field of telecommunication which has accepted paying via cryptocurrency, it is much far away from the first business which accepted such payment method. A group of famous retailers, including Whole Food, Nordstrom, and GameStop, have recently accepted cryptocurrency using Flexa payment network as a payment method this month. There have been businesses which have canceled such payment method due to high volatilities and high charges after a while. As an example, Steam business canceled paying with Bitcoin using BitPay platform in 2016, but it canceled it in 2017.
AT&T activities in the field of cryptocurrency and Blockchain are not limited to paying the bills. At the end of 2018, AT&T announced that it was developing a solution based on Blockchain to provide more transparency and accountability for the most complex supply chains in areas such as production, health, and retail. According to what has been announced, this solution will be adapted to IBM Blockchain technology and Microsoft Azure’s Blockchain.
Among other activities of AT&T in the field of Blockchain and cryptocurrency, is applying patent at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This idea used the features of data Immutability and permanency in Blockchain to provide a platform to store and get access to the history of information in the applications of social networks. Among the applications of this platform, tracing trends and the friends’ interests in time can be mentioned. According to what has been claimed in this patent, this idea can be highly applicable in electronic trades and ads.
www.counos.io 