Different Ways to Spend Crypto at the 2018 FIFA WorldCup
There is a lot happening behind the scenes even as the 64 World Cup matches go on in Russia’s 11 cities and 12 stadiums. One such thing happening is cryptocurrencies. Compared to the 2014 World Cup, a lot more businesses are letting users attending the World Cup to pay for services with cryptocurrencies.
So here we discuss amazing things you can do spending cryptocurrencies at the World Cup or on your way there: from paying for travel fares, accommodation, betting to doing ordinary purchases and services.
On your way? Catch up with CheapOair and Destinia
CheapOair has been accepting cryptocurrencies since 2013 and if you are planning to fly to Russia, you can pay fair using cryptocurrencies.
Destinia is a travel agency that lets you spend Bitcoin by paying for travel services. You simply choose mili-Bitcoins in the currency display and prices will display in mili-Bitcoins, then undergo through the same process of booking and paying but select the option to allow paying with Bitcoin.
You will see an encrypted address where to transfer your required Bitcoins. You can either use the pay with Bitcoin feature on the web or use the QR code from your mobile phone. Pay and the system will double confirm receiving the amount and reserve the booking while you receive a confirmation voucher.
Change crypto into local cash
Meet the Wirex card: The Wirex card lets travelers exchange cryptocurrencies for fiat and in Russia, you can load the card with BTC, USD, EUR, or GBP and get Rubles.
Pay for accommodation at Malina Apartments
Apartments Malinachain in Kaliningrad – which is one of the cities hosting some world cup matches, lets you pay for accommodation with Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin as well as Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bytepay (BAY), Dash (DASH), Emercoin (EMC), Monero (XMR), Peercoin (PPC), Primecoin (XPM), Reddcoin (RDD) and Zcash (ZCASH). The hotel is partnering with Free-Kassa to facilitate this. Some of the teams to play in the city include Belgium, Croatia, Morocco, Nigeria, Serbia, Switzerland, Spain, and England.
The cost of the rooms even increased for the dates of the football matches, each costing around 18,000 rubles (around $310 dollars).
"For us, this is an interesting experience - we did not have to cooperate with hotels and hotels in such a format. But the hospitality industry is very sensitive to such trends, "added Vitaly Lavrov, development director of Free-Kasser.
Meet SelfSell Rodriguez’s coin
If you are a fan of James Rodriguez – the Columbianh footballer who won the Golden Boot at the 2014 World Cup by scoring six goals and led the team to the quarter finals and then moved to a big-time move to Real Madrid – you might as well consider becoming a fan of his cryptocurrency.
Rodriguez became the first major athlete to launch their own cryptocurrency in partnership with SelfSell. And he says the JR10 token will solidify the fan relationship since users will be able to spend it on exclusive merchandise, participate in fan club meetings, and interact with the star.
The token sold out in 12 seconds in the pre-sale period on the SelfSell app. It will definitely be interesting to find out this plays out even at the world cup in Russia.
Enter footbal forecast for World Cup games
TRON is partnering with non-profit vSport to being the first decentralized prediction market in the sports market. Rather explained, they call it a “blockchain-based soccer results forecasting platform.” It was deployed on the TRON mainnet prior to the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
vSport is a blockchain operation in the sporting field that was started by Qiang Bai (a tech entrepreneur) and Wesley Sneijder (a soccer star of Internazionale Milan and the Dutch national team fame, considered to be one of the best-attacking midfielders ever to grace the game).
Play EtherCup
EtherCup is a football card collectible/auction house where you can buy the 32 Football Cup teams. It uses smart contracts to store 32 football nation cards as a token on the Ethereum blockchain and digitize the Football Collectible Cards.
Holders and users of the unique cards will be able to win prizes after World Cup. The person who owns the card for the winning team at the end of the World Cup will get $100 worth of ETH.
Meet CR7Coin that rebranded to SporChain
CR7Coin is not a cryptocurrency owned by Christiano Ronaldo or supported by the footballer, but launched in February to focus on (honor) the footballer’s accomplishment and is a platform that will even have a marketplace where users can buy with CR7Coins.
Finally, they had to rebrand to SporChain after a disclaimer started appearing that the Cristiano Ronaldo, who owns the CR7 trademark, is not associated with the coin.
Connect to players with Olyseum
Olyseum is a social media platform that connects fans with their favorite players and incentives to interact via token payments. If you are a fan of Andres Iniesta from Spain football team, who led the team to win the 2010 World Cup, you might as well consider supporting the platform because he is the platform’s adviser.
Bonded with betting?
Intertops and Bodog are an example of two websites where you can bet for your favorite teams in World Cup with cryptocurrencies although there is a fiat option as usual.
The CryptoCup is also an Ethereum-based blockchain platform that allows you to bet on the World Cup games. With it, you can buy tokens and customize the tokens with your predictions. Simply install Metamask app via your browser gets Ethereum to buy your tokens and then participate. It uses ERC-721 standard. When the World Cup is over, you will get points from your tokens and win prizes. If you win bets, you will receive more points.
One thing with betting online is that you have to find out if the platform is genuine and if it actually makes sense for your investments. You can therefore try Hero, Winstars and Dragon Inc. that provide betting advice to users.
These platforms record predictions of sporting events on the blockchain and there is transparency in the betting process because you can access all records and even check other bettors’ track record to ensure validity of betting odds and advice.
Killfish
Kill Fish is accepting Bitcoin at its chain of bars in Russia. You will also be getting some discounts if you spend Bitcoins there.
