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Move over, Overstock.com, there’s another big player in town that’s going to be accepting bitcoin.
Announced today, TV giant Dish Network Corp. announced they will become the largest company and first subscription model pay-TV yet to accept bitcoin.
Working in partnership with San Francisco-based Coinbase, the company says they’re planning to accept digital currency payments later this year, perhaps by September.
According to company chief operating officer Bernie Han, the idea came from DISH employees who have over recent months become bitcoin enthusiasts.
“We always want to deliver choice and convenience for our customers and that includes the method they use to pay their bills,” he said in a statement. “Bitcoin is becoming a preferred way for some people to transact and we want to accommodate those individuals.”
Han also made note of the fact that Coinbase’s fee structure is much more attractive than that offered by the company’s credit card processors today.
Although the demand for paying for subscription satellite TV remains unclear, it highlights DISH’s objective to remain on the cutting edge and popular among young consumers.
“We’re excited to support DISH and their current and new subscribers for their bitcoin transactions,” Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam said. “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.
According to DISH, customers will have the option to use the digital currency to make one-time payments for their television service at mydish.com.
A further announcement is expected to be made when the payment system gets underway.
Dish Network, at present, has a market cap of $27.17 billion on the NASDAQ exchange. In comparison, Overstock.com’s market cap is significantly less at $368.82 million.
Scott R. 
Nice move by an unlikely corporate behemoth! This story would truly excite me if they were keeping some percentage of their revenue in Bitcoins, instead of cashing out immediately for U.S. dollars. To really build the Bitcoin ecosystem worldwide, we need the currency to stay in Bitcoins. But don’t get me wrong… this is a great first step.
Nice. Scott, I disagree. Accepting Bitcoin is the big deal. Retaining some portion of the transaction in bitcoin is not necessary for global acceptance.