Bitpay, global Bitcoin payment service provider, in a blog post announced that the company has added support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH). It will be the first time in since its inception that it will process payment in a digital token other than Bitcoin (BTC).

Bitpay Merchants To Accept Bitcoin Cash Payments

Bitpay is a go-to company for traditional businesses that want to accept digital currencies as payment. The point-of-sale company, immediately converts digital currency payments to fiat money, therefore lowering the risk for merchants from the volatility of the chosen cryptocurrency.

According to the company blog, the Bitcoin fork – Bitcoin Cash will allow risk-free transactions. The blog read,

“Bitcoin Cash will give BitPay merchants another great way to receive blockchain payments from customers around the world, without the risk of credit card fraud or chargebacks,”

The Atlanta-based company is planning to add support for more cryptocurrencies. However, for now, the BCH support offers Bitpay merchants a choice of two payment options. Last year in December, the payments service provider company announced it would add support for multiple digital currencies, starting with BCH, due to skyrocketing fees on BTC network. However, fees have retreated from their incredible highs in December.

Bitcoin Cash – A payment friendly Blockchain

At the time, several businesses that accepted BTC either halted or stopped the service due to high transaction fees. Causing Bitpay to publicise its suport of BCH. Although the layer two payments network – Lightning Network – built on top of the bitcoin blockchain can significantly reduce transaction fees and can process transactions instantly, the protocol is still not production ready.

The company blog post highlights

“Since Bitcoin Cash costs only pennies (or less) for customers to send, it’s great for BitPay merchants who want to accept blockchain micro-transactions for things like video games, food delivery, or app downloads.”

Bitcoin Cash support is immediately effective and therefore users will have two payments options to pay with BTC or BCH. According to blog, the company also plans to add Bitcoin Cash to a “mass payouts product”, where businesses will make a single batch deposit and Bitpay will issue payouts, cutting down the paperwork.

Lightning Network is one of the main competitors when it comes to making payments. Recently, LN nodes outnumbered active nodes running on the BCH network. Nevertheless, Bitpay users now have secondary payment option – Bitcoin Cash – as with all markets the added competition is healthy.