Spain’s Biggest Telecoms Provider Now Accepts Crypto for Payments

With various entities worldwide increasingly adopting Crypto, Spain continues to experience significant growth in the local blockchain market after its largest telecom services provider as it spreads its tentacles into internet technologies. Telefonica, the global telecom organization with headquarters in Madrid, Spain, allows payments in the form of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and USD Coin (USDC), among others on the online tech market destination Tu. The organization added a crypto payment component that was provided by Bit2Me, a Spanish crypto exchange firm. The goal is to sell their tech products and allow users to pay in Crypto. The crypto exchange firm talked about the addition during its Telefonica Metaverse Day Event. 

According to a statement by the company confirming the collaboration, the organizations’ understanding creates the opportunity to provide new experiences and ideas to consumers by combining the analog and digital worlds to redefine entertainment, commerce, and communication in the metaverse. 

In addition, purchases using cryptocurrencies will be strictly for buying mobile phones and televisions not exceeding $500. The organization revealed it had no intention of having the customers pay their phone bills using cryptocurrencies

What this means

Aside from incorporating Crypto in the online market, the telecom company recently confirmed its engagement with software company Qualcomm Technologies to expand its extended reality (XR) research and make the Metaverse a reality. Daniel Hernandez, an executive at the organization, revealed the company chose to work with the software company to prepare for the future and develop its infrastructure. This will allow them to remain at par with developments relating to innovation, allowing them to be innovative in their service to consumers. Besides its initiative to integrate Crypto and develop the Metaverse, Telefonica has also ventured into nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The company created and released its NFT marketplace connected with the crypto wallet MetaMask. 

Telefonica’s Previous Engagement With Cryptocurrencies

This is not Telefonica’s first engagement with innovation related to cryptocurrencies. A report by Cointelegraph indicated that the company had started an initiative that helped artificial intelligence and blockchain organizations in 2019. The function of this was to improve its traditional ecosystems by incorporating them with emerging technologies. 

In 2020, the telecom firm worked with Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone to assess a blockchain initiative to improve roaming discount contracts. The blockchain initiative aims to mitigate costs and develop effective settlement processes for inter-company engagements. 

Crypto coin Price Show Indications of Going Up

Crypto analysts assessed the Bitcoin price trend and determined that it could experience a possible upswing. Various price charts gave early indications of an uptrend. Recent information on Bitcoin trading indicated the cryptocurrency recorded a series of higher lows, developing the foundation for the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization to start increasing again. 

However, this indicated more buyers are willing to buy the coin at progressively increased costs. On September 21, the cryptocurrency made progressively higher highs within nine days. There are speculations that it can increase higher and go past 27%. 

Vueling also Joined the Crypto

Consequently, another well-known Spanish organization invested in the crypto market in the last few months is the Barcelona-based organization Vueling Airlines. In June, it started working with BitPay to enable customers to purchase tickets in 13 digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and others.

In conclusion, the project’s execution will begin at the start of 2023. This would make the airline the first low-cost airline in Europe to incorporate cryptocurrencies as a payment method. The company’s Vice President of Marketing, Merrick Theobald, stated the organization recognized the potential cryptocurrencies have in changing the industry and improving payment.