Dish To Accept Bitcoins For Payments.

Darrell S

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According to abcnews.com,they will start accepting in Sept.
My only knowledge of Bitcoins is what I see in the media. I thought they were mostly used for illegal activity.
 
  • Bitcoin acceptance begins Q3 for pay-TV subscription service
  • Largest company to-date and first pay-TV provider to accept "cryptocurrency"
  • Coinbase selected as payment processor
ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- DISH today announced that it will become the largest company to accept bitcoin. As the first subscription model pay-TV provider to make this move, DISH will begin accepting bitcoin payments from customers starting in the third quarter. DISH Network L.L.C. is a wholly owned subsidiary of DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH).

"We always want to deliver choice and convenience for our customers and that includes the method they use to pay their bills," said Bernie Han, DISH executive vice president and chief operating officer. "Bitcoin is becoming a preferred way for some people to transact and we want to accommodate those individuals."

DISH has selected Coinbase as the payment processor for bitcoin transactions with customers who choose to pay their bill online with the bitcoin wallet of their choice. DISH will use Coinbase's Instant Exchange™ feature to exchange bitcoin payments to U.S. dollars at the moment of the transaction.

"We're excited to support DISH and their current and new subscribers for their bitcoin transactions," said Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam. "This is a large step forward in the growing momentum of customers paying companies in bitcoin for things we do every day, like watching premium TV."

"As a bitcoin payment processor, Coinbase will help DISH make the payment experience easy for our customers and make it easy for DISH to receive immediate credit in dollars, at an attractive cost for DISH," added Han.

The bitcoin payment option will be available for DISH customers choosing to make one-time payments on mydish.com starting in the third quarter. Customers will still have the option to make any payment online via credit card, debit card or bank account.
 
I still don't understand Bitcoin.
The draw of bitcoin is that it isn't the Government being involved. There are a certain number of people out there that default to thinking anything is good if the US Treasury and The Fed isn't involved. The bitcoin has no regulatory body, therefore free market, therefore perfect.

The problem with bitcoins is that there is no regulatory body, they apparently can get lost in electronical snaffus, they cam be directly monitored, and their value behaves more like a commodity (not good for a currency). Their value has skyrocketed. But the problem with that is it is deflation... meaning when your money will be worth more tomorrow than today, you won't spend it today. That is bad for an economy.

I'm surprised Dish is hopping onto this. If they accept bitcoin, they'll have to be able to offload them too. Unless Charlie figured something out with bitcoin and how he can raise enough capital by investing in them without paying a dime and making 1000% on them and then buying AT&T.
 
I've never used bitcoins but there are a few benefits. One of the biggest ones is removing banks and their fees from the equation. I'm sure Dish would love it if all their customers switched to this method so they could stop paying Visa and Mastercard.

Here is a very long New York Times article explaining the benefits to using it. I cut out a small part of it for those who don't want to read the entire article.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

“Let’s say you sell electronics online. Profit margins in those businesses are usually under 5 percent, which means conventional 2.5 percent payment fees consume half the margin. That’s money that could be reinvested in the business, passed back to consumers or taxed by the government. Of all of those choices, handing 2.5 percent to banks to move bits around the Internet is the worst possible choice. Another challenge merchants have with payments is accepting international payments. If you are wondering why your favorite product or service isn’t available in your country, the answer is often payments.”
 
In other words Dish is not really accepting bitcoins. Instead they are taking payments in US dollars via a payment processor that will happen to take bitcoins and convert them to dollars for you to pay Dish.

Given that the IRS has ruled that bitcoins are not a currency, but an asset. I doubt that many will take advantage of this program. Essentially you would have to declare every payment to Dish on your tax return as a capital gain/loss line item. And of course the payment processor would have to report to the IRS every transaction as an asset sale to be matched back to your taxes.
 
You can add me to that. I tried. As a "bit" of advice, when they say mining for coins, don't bother digging in your backyard, they aren't there.....;)

When I was looking into building my own PC I came across rigs for mining Bitcoins. I decided to look into it but never fully understood the point of it. There are other forms of coins out there as well, such as the Dogecoin.

You won't be able to make any real money from mining bitcoins anymore. Individuals could do this in the beginning but it has become big business now. There are companies and co-ops connecting hundreds of computers to make sure they can mine as many as possible. They have made it so an individual using one computer won't have the processing power to beat them to new coins.
 
So the payment processor doing the conversion to US dollars will most likely charge a conversion fee, something the consumer would end up paying in the form of a less favorable conversion rate. No thanks. I'll let the vendors pay the transaction fees on my credit cards that have built-in fraud protection and dispute resolution.
 
So the payment processor doing the conversion to US dollars will most likely charge a conversion fee, something the consumer would end up paying in the form of a less favorable conversion rate. No thanks. I'll let the vendors pay the transaction fees on my credit cards that have built-in fraud protection and dispute resolution.

It sounds like Dish is immediately converting the bitcoins to cash. They would pay a small fee to the company they are using to do this. It's pretty similar to the way they pay Visa and Mastercard to process your transactions now except the fees are lower. It should be a bit cheaper for Dish when customers choose to pay this way.

I don't think they would make the customer pay their fees for converting to cash though. It all trickles down in the end but they don't currently make you pay your Visa transaction fee if you choose to pay that way instead of a check.

That being said, I don't use bitcoin and have no plans to do so anytime soon.
 
It sounds like Dish is immediately converting the bitcoins to cash. They would pay a small fee to the company they are using to do this. It's pretty similar to the way they pay Visa and Mastercard to process your transactions now except the fees are lower. It should be a bit cheaper for Dish when customers choose to pay this way.

I don't think they would make the customer pay their fees for converting to cash though. It all trickles down in the end but they don't currently make you pay your Visa transaction fee if you choose to pay that way instead of a check.

Dish may pay a small fee to the company for the processing, but I bet the conversion commission is paid completely by the customer. One way or another, if it is not a fee or a percentage it will be via an unfavorable exchange rage.
 
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That, on top of bitcoin transactions being non-reversible with no consumer protections, forget it.
 
Dish may pay a small fee to the company for the processing, but I bet the conversion commission is paid completely by the customer. One way or another, if it is not a fee or a percentage it will be via an unfavorable exchange rage.

Supposedly there are no fees for proccessing bitcoin sales. I've never used them myself so I don't know how true that is in the real world. Coinbase and other processors make their money when consumers buy bitcoins to use at retailers and when retailers sell bitcoins to buy cash.

It might end up costing Dish customers more money because you are going to have to give up a percentage when you buy your bitcoins. Unless you take them as payment yourself or are able to successfully mine significant amounts you have to buy them if you want to use them.

Dish definitely benefits from this change. Customers may or may not. When you use your Visa you only have to buy your credit in the form of interest rates and bank fees. I pay nothing in fees to my credit union for my debit card and I don't rack up much in interest so using my card would probably be the better option for me. You would have to look at the rates yourself to see if it's worth the hassle to you. To me it's not.
 
I pay no fees or interest on my credit cards, so it's a no-brainer for me.
I believe they mean the finance fee that Dish is charged by Mastercard, Visa, Diners Club ;) for the transaction you make with your card.
 
I know what they mean, what I mean is vendors paying the transaction fee is part of the cost of doing business. Never would I switch over from using a credit card with all its benefits and protections and start using bitcoins which is fraught with abuse and volatility.
 
I know what they mean, what I mean is vendors paying the transaction fee is part of the cost of doing business. Never would I switch over from using a credit card with all its benefits and protections and start using bitcoins which is fraught with abuse and volatility.
Understood. Can't argue with that.
 
So I guess soon DISH will accept Chickens for payment . Just like the Chicken Ranch in The Best little whorehouse in Texas. DISH will do anything to get paid.:devilish
 
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