Telecom Giant AT&T Gains First-Mover Status by Accepting Crypto
AT&T is the first telecom company to begin accepting crypto payments, helping to fuel a broader trend in 2019 of corporations supporting bitcoin. | Source: (i) Shutterstock (ii) Shutterstock
AT&T is the first telecom company to begin accepting crypto payments, helping to fuel a broader trend in 2019 of corporations supporting bitcoin. | Source: (i) Shutterstock (ii) Shutterstock

By CCN: AT&T announced today that it is accepting crypto payments through Bitpay, which supports a number of major cryptocurrencies. A short press release notes that the integration is complete and users can make payments with Bitpay via the AT&T website or through the mobile app.

2019: Year of Major Companies Accepting Crypto

AT&T Vice President of Communications Finance Business Operations Kevin McDorman stated:

“We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services. We have customers who use cryptocurrency, and we are happy we can offer them a way to pay their bills with the method they prefer.”

The news follows a recent spate of SIM-jacking incidents in which AT&T (and other) customers lost crypto as a result of customer service representatives being tricked into allowing the reassignment of SIMs belonging to people known to hold crypto. SIM-jacking is a weak point in crypto security models that use SMS-based two-factor authentication.

One of these incidents led to a high-profile lawsuit and a $75 million victory so far. The case against AT&T is ongoing.

Read the full story on CCN.com.