Chandler, Arizona will take PayPal-held bitcoin, ether and litecoin for water bill payments.Read MoreFeedzy
An Arizona city is allowing residents to pay their utility bills in bitcoin and ether in the latest example of municipal governments embracing cryptocurrencies.
Chandler, a Phoenix suburb, on Wednesday said that residents can pay in bitcoin, ether and litecoin held in their PayPal accounts. But the city won’t ever touch those coins; its utility payments processor Invoice Cloud will sell it all for fiat, a press release said.
City Councilmember Mark Stewart said in a press release that it’s important to serve residents with the newest technology, like crypto payments. But it was unclear at press time whether anyone in the city of 250,000 had begun using the option.
Chandler is not the first U.S. city to mesh crypto payments with utilities. Mercedes, Texas voted to research the subject last November, months after Williston, North Dakota brought its offering online. Both are orders of magnitude smaller than Chandler.
Chandler’s choice of PayPal means that bill-payers can’t use their self-custodied coins. PayPal’s crypto service is a closed loop that doesn’t let digital assets in or out.
PayPal and city officials did not respond to CoinDesk’s questions by press time.
DISCLOSURE
The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG.
Bitcoin saw explosive growth immediately after the recent U.S. presidential elections, rising and retaking the…
Bitcoin miner IREN (IREN) rose nearly 30% on Wednesday after executives said the company had…
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech…
Bitcoin zoomed above $97,000, bringing hopes of breaching the landmark $100,000 level on social media,…
Bitcoin layer-2 network GOAT will soon let dogecoin (DOGE) users stake their tokens to earn…
There’s something about major psychological price levels, like bitcoin's (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/ " target="_blank">BTC</a>) $100,000 mark.…