Bitcoin has been steadily rising to prominence as a method of payment with merchants across a wide variety of industries. Nevertheless, utility companies have been much slower to incorporate bitcoin payments into their systems. This might sound quite ironic to the people who understand how this cryptocurrency works, since mining is an energy – electricity – intensive endeavor for which it would be difficult to pay with the proceeds of the energy invested. Nevertheless, utility payments using this cryptocurrency have gathered steam over the past few years especially in Europe. Enercity is the latest utility to enable bitcoin payments, joining the ranks of other utility companies in Europe, giving the world some more food for thought.
Enercity puts Germany on the Bitcoin Map
Enercity joined the bitcoin revolution quite recently. In a press release from September 16th, 2016, the company announced that its customers in Hannover will now be able to pay for their electricity bills using bitcoin. Despite the fact that Germany could easily be the European leader in terms of bitcoin adoption, Enercity entered the cryptocurrency era after peers in the Netherlands and Italy.
Bitcoin Utility Payments in Europe beyond Enercity
Reports claim that the first utility company in Europe to take bitcoin payments was Bas Nederland. This energy supplier started taking these payments as of March 2014, according to the reports, at a time in which bitcoin was suffering from the Mt Gox blow. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency continued advancing in terms of acceptance, and as of May 2015, NordOvest Energie of Italy enabled this payment method for its customers as well.
Indirect Utility Payments using Bitcoin
Given that bitcoin payments for utility bills are rare and also seem to be a mostly European phenomenon, other bill payment services have emerged to bridge the gap between the utility companies and the consumer. Such is the case of Montreal-based bylls.com, which lets its users pay for bills from over 4000 service providers in Canada, entirely with bitcoin. Bylls does take a small fee to make the payment, which is also somewhat ironic given that bitcoin was designed to surpass the middleman.
Final Thoughts
As Enercity joins a handful of utility companies that accept bitcoin payments, it is necessary to point out that the utility companies that have the most to gain from the bitcoin revolution are actually not in Europe. Utility companies in countries in which a significant part of the population does not have access to banking services, have the most to gain from accepting bitcoin payments. Hopefully Enercity’s move will contribute to the momentum and utility companies in places where the un-banked constitute a major sector of the consumer market will follow suit. This will help us realize the goals of Satoshi Nakamoto, to enable a true P2P economy without intermediaries.
