Dish To Accept Bitcoins For Payments.

[acostapimps]

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.

 

[frank c.]

I'll stick with my credit or debit cards for my payments.

sent via my MOTOROLA MOTO X on sprint.

 

[osumike]

I know I could just take the time to look this up myself, but what do you mean when you say mining for bitcoins? And that several computers linked together would be better than one mining alone?

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[oldengineer]

AFAIK the mining exercise involves generating the SHA256 residue of 256 bit numbers provided by the organization. New base numbers are provided every 10 minutes. The number "wins" if the 256 bit residue is less than a designated value. The last time I looked it appeared that the upper 59 or 60 bits had to be 0. Since the SHA256 is supposed to provide a uniform pdf for each bit that would say that the chances of getting a winning solution is 1/(2^59) or so. But here is where sharing comes in. If the first solution is bad an incremental number is added to the base and another computation is done and I think this process continues until the next base number comes up 10 minutes later. This means that the fastest machines will be able to generate more possible solutions, but it also means that if a bunch of computers are used the base number can be partitioned by multiples of the offset and a bunch of computers can be working on different ranges of the base.

I used to implement CRC-32, a similar type of problem, for ethernets, and believe me, SHA256 is exponentially longer to compute. As noted there are companies using special logic circuits doing this including one I am aware of doing it in Iceland where they can run faster.

I'm not a bitcoin expert by any means and haven't seen many simple to understand explanations of what is involved but this is my understanding of it.

 

[Peter Parker]

Here is a totally worthless question bt what is the accepted plural for bitcoin? Is it Bitcoins or just bitcoin? after all we are not talking about physical objects.

 

[Stargazer]

Dish Network figures what the heck, lets give it a shot. There is a chance to get a lot of customers by being the only tv provider to accept bitcoin. The bitcoin community will see this as a big plus and switch to Dish Network as that is another way for them to spend their bitcoins.

 

[oldengineer]

It has been pointed out that they are going to use Coinbase for the transaction and will immediately convert the bitcoin to dollars so it's really a no-op as far as I can see. Now if they would start accepting my Amex card for autopay I'd get excited.

 

[Annie61]

I still don't understand Bitcoin.

I'm glad I am not the only one. I keep reading info on them and for some reason my brain just doesn't get it.

 

[Peter Parker]

There really is no "them". It is a digital currency not a physical one. It has no intrinsic value. It is valuable only because people have decided it is (not unklke paper money). Originally you could "mine" bitcoin (or bitcoins if that is proper) but at this point that is difficult. But really all it is justa pdf witha digital number.

 

[ZachS@DISH]

It has been pointed out that they are going to use Coinbase for the transaction and will immediately convert the bitcoin to dollars so it's really a no-op as far as I can see. Now if they would start accepting my Amex card for autopay I'd get excited.

Amex is still accepted for autopay.

 

[Bobby]

Yes, simply check Visa or Mastercard and plug in your Amex card number and it works just fine. I have autopay set up that way and just a few days ago I ordered a device from Dish and plugged my Amex card number next to Visa and it worked just fine...

 

[oldengineer]

Yes, simply check Visa or Mastercard and plug in your Amex card number and it works just fine. I have autopay set up that way and just a few days ago I ordered a device from Dish and plugged my Amex card number next to Visa and it worked just fine...

Thanks. I'm getting excited.

 

[DishSubLA]

That, on top of bitcoin transactions being non-reversible with no consumer protections, forget it.

Just like cash.

 

[dare2be]

I rarely use cash anymore either.

Also, as far as account balances are concerned, bitcoins aren't insured by the FDIC or the NCUA.