Sling TV Partners With Bitpay To Enable Crypto Payments For Streaming Services

Streaming service and Netflix competitor Sling TV is now allowing its members to pay their monthly subscription in cryptocurrency, using Bitpay. Accepted cryptos include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Wrapped Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Shiba Inu, and various stablecoins.

Crypto For Streaming

Sling revealed its Bitpay integration in an announcement from its site on Friday. The company claims that its acceptance of cryptocurrency will now bring “choice and convenience” to the checkout process. The option is currently available to exist subscribers and will be available to new ones after one month of membership.

“Sling provides cutting-edge solutions for digital-minded customers, and accepting crypto payments for this OTT digital platform was clearly the obvious next step for our subscribers,” said the company.

Companies often hesitate to accept crypto payments due to the volatility of such assets, and the complexities of implementing them into existing systems. Ones that do usually only do so through instant crypto to fiat conversion services, like prepaid crypto cards.

It’s unclear whether Sling will be holding these assets directly, or using a similar conversion service. Bitpay is well known as one of the first companies to offer crypto payments through conversion, supporting over 90 different crypto wallet apps. Sling states that users must have a crypto wallet loaded with funds to use their Bitpay service, but that it doesn’t have to be the Bitpay native wallet.

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The company’s choice of accepted cryptos includes some of the most popular names – though not necessarily the most valuable. For instance, while Shiba Inu and Dogecoin are explicitly joke currencies outside of the top 10, they were the first and third most visited coins on CoinMarketCap last year. Meanwhile, top players such as Cardano and Solana were left unaccommodated.

Growing Interest In Crypto Payments

The adoption of cryptocurrencies as a means of exchange looks primed to accelerate over the coming year. According to a recent report from Crypto.com and Worldpay from FIS, 60% of merchants surveyed would like to start accepting crypto payments this year. Interest was especially strong among merchants in the luxury goods (80%) and retail/grocery (80%) industries.

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A Visa survey released last month showed similarly growing interest, with 24% of small businesses planning to accept crypto in 2022. Some organizations have gone even further already, converting their entire treasury from dollars to Bitcoin.