- BTC to BCH trades enabled by BitPay
- Partnership with ShapeShift offers BitPay and Copay customers more options
- BitPay, a global leader in cross-border payments using Bitcoin, has announced its integration with instant cryptocurrency converter ShapeShift to enable instantaneous Bitcoin (BTC) to Bitcoin Cash (BCH) trades.
Both companies have now added ShapeShift’s Application Programming Interface (API) to their wallet apps, allowing customers wishing to make international money transfers using the cryptocurrency to “shift” or exchange Bitcoin for Bitcoin Cash (and contrariwise).
Bitcoin launched Bitcoin Cash in August last year in order to expand the size limit of blockchain blocks, which would in turn multiply the number of transactions that the network could process every minute.
Customers simply create Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash e-wallets via the BitPay platform and, provided there are non-zero balances in both that meet the minimum required amounts, “click to shift”. The BTC and/or BCH network then confirms the transaction immediately.
Expressing the firm’s excitement over how the ShapeShift API integration will pan out for its customers, BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said: “ShapeShift has built a powerful service for blockchain payments users. We’re excited to be working with them to give more choice to BitPay and Copay wallet users in how they save, store, and spend their money.”
The new integration actually marks the latest in a series of measures BitPay has taken to support Bitcoin Cash, beginning in September last year when it enabled comprehensive support for all of its wallets, including Copay. In December, the company announced that it would be enabling Bitcoin Cash across all of its payment processing services. In other words, BitPay seems to be morphing from a Bitcoin-only platform to a combined BTC and BCH service.
The move may have been forced on the company: some of their bigger clients, most notably Steam, have started to end support for Bitcoin payments. Steam did so in December and, a month later, Microsoft has followed suit, citing lengthy delays and concerns about the currency’s volatility.
