Bitcoin Forum

It is SL Benfica, a Portuguese soccer giant who has decided to accept payments using bitcoin (BTC) in each transaction. In addition to BTC, fans can buy tickets, t-shirts, and all club accessories using special tokens named Ether (ETH) or UTK. The historic decision was announced by Benfica through the club's official website some time ago.
To help realize this plan, Benfica has partnered with a company called Utrust which later acted as a money changer and was tasked with exchanging crypto money from fans to conventional money instantly. Thus, it is expected that the club can mitigate the potential for price reductions that could occur due to the relatively high volatility of the crypto exchange rate in the spot market.

Why did they accept this random token(EnergiToken) as payment though? Now it just looks like a sponsor, pretty much like how PornHub accepted Verge(XVG).

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EDIT: Nvm. They accepted UTK not ETK. And yes, confirmed it's sponsored.

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/s-l-benfica-is-the-first-major-european-football-club-to-accept-cryptocurrency

Sponsored?? May be!! But does it make the entire story look bad?? I believe no!!

This kind of adoption is actually very helpful to the crypto growth! Even though it doesn't have much worldwide appeal but still it is a great deal to have a major EU football club accepting cryptos.

Majority of the human population lives under the shadow of Banking industry where they believe cryptocurrency is a illegal iteam which is mostly used by criminals. If you don't believe me, just speak to 10 random people, you will understand the reality.

Such kind of deals are actually helpful to clear such confusions out of the minds of common mass!  Doesn't really matter what crypto they are accepting, but the mention of cryptocurrency is enough to do good to the market and win back at least some trust of common mass!

I didn't expect that Utrust can go this far. It was a great project and it's good to know that it's continuously pursuing its goals.
However, this kind of cryptocurrency adoption is really an advantage because there are lots of football fans who will also support Bitcoin and other altcoins like Utk and Eth.

Soccer teams have plans to launch their own crypto currencies, Benfica with its token utk wasn't the first one: the Sporting Club of Portugal planned to launch an ico before, although they found it difficult to raise funds and I don't know if they discontinued the idea.
Another teams like Paris Saint Germain and Juventus have already launched their crypto currencies. Looks like every soccer team will have their own currency on the future. On the other hand, the benefits of crypto currency can be used for money laundering, as it is a common practice among soccer sponsors.

this is a good advertising for bitcoin in europe, in the last few months I have read bad news coming from the European Central Bank, things like these:

European Central Bank: Crypto Does Not Have Tangible Impact on Real Economy (https://cointelegraph.com/news/european-central-bank-crypto-does-not-have-tangible-impact-on-real-economy)

ECB President Mario Draghi: Cryptos Are Not Currencies, They Are Very Risky Assets (https://cointelegraph.com/news/ecb-president-mario-draghi-cryptos-are-not-currencies-they-are-very-risky-assets)

portugal is a country that has very strange policies, so I do not know if with this movement that the SL Benfica is doing if it will increase adoption in portugal or europe. That's why I consider this movement as an advertising campaign for bitcoin.

Yes it is true another publicity stunt for crypto and it is indeed a great job.
Now people or Football fans or industry would be aware of crypto currency.
This is a great news for us and I hope that this would also be great for the market.

Every adaption of cryptocurrency has always a huge impact on the development and growth of blockchain technology. We all know that what we really need is for people to be aware and informed about the importance of cryptocurrency in society. Football community will add a big number of users due to this adaption. It's just good to know that despite all the rejections and banning controversies, crypto is still standing firm.

well it was time that even the world of football began to use the crypto even if for now is only a small start a sponsored altcoin, i also hope other teams start to accept payments with altcoins, is all positive advertising and may perhaps bring new people closer to this fantastic world...

For them, this is just another way to get more money. I guess that they are instantly converting their coins to fiat via something like BitPay and none of those people is holding any significant amount of coins (even if they get that much crypto payments).
Soccer teams are already sponsored by many financial organizations (including shady ones) like banks or forex brokers. Football teams do not care that much about activities of their sponsors so it is not a surprise to see crypto project among them.

That's good news I've never heard. Such events will increase the added value of the market. I wish he'd done something similar on my team. I would gladly do shopping.

Any kind of crypto adoption always drags bitcoin, good to know that adoption is in process all over the world in different industries. Despite some countries still reject and discourage its people from using it still the adoption is unstoppable.

Never said it was automatically a bad thing. :P It's only just another unnecessary token to be used for payments, but whatever. At least BTC and ETH is an option I guess; and publicity is publicity regardless if people would actually pay using crypto or not.

I know and I don't see why people are making such a big deal about it. It would be a lot different if they were actually holding their revenue in crypto but they are definitely keeping everything in fiat money.

i think you still not what utrust is?
after a few search on google you can found what is Utrust

after i try to order on the website and we can pay the transaction using UTK/BTC/ETH
https://i.imgur.com/N9VU1cQ.png (https://i.imgur.com/N9VU1cQ.png)

Football industry is a multi-million dollar industry and integrating btc as form of payment would be great in crypto industry. This might give a certain impact to btc price. And all crypto users will benefit from it. I can't wait to see such development in crypto in general.

I think not only that, crypto has been used for a long time in football, as happened to the Juventus team last year, they supported and partnered with several companies engaged in crypto.
https://www.juventus.com/en/news/news/2018/juventus-announce-partnership-with-blockchain-platform-socios-com-to-launch-fan-token.php

And I think not only in crypto football developing, so far I have seen many other sports teams participating in crypto. Oh yes I have several news references that you can read.

1. LA Kings Confirm Release of Blockchain Merchandise Authenticator (http://"https://cointelegraph.com/news/la-kings-confirm-release-of-blockchain-merchandise-authenticator")
2. Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Team to Hold Giveaway of Player Crypto Tokens via ETH (http://"https://cointelegraph.com/news/los-angeles-dodgers-baseball-team-to-hold-giveaway-of-player-crypto-tokens-via-eth")
3. NBA’s Dallas Mavericks Will Accept Bitcoin For Tickets, Mark Cuban Promises (http://"https://cointelegraph.com/news/nbas-dallas-mavericks-will-accept-bitcoin-for-tickets-mark-cuban-promises")

I believe this is not the first time I have read a thread here regarding bitcoin used for football,last year if I am not mistaken in Germany some hotels accept bitcoin as payments for the accommodation of the foreign visitors who will watch the game

And this movement of Portuguese team of soccer to accept bitcoin or cryptocurrency for the payments.this may give another exposure and advertisements for cryptocurrency.

Well publicity is taken either good or bad so let’s just be thankful at least there are some opportunities that open for cryptocurrency specially something like this with multi million industry

Premier League club West Ham United in April launched its own digital token.

In collaboration with the Socios platform, digital tokens that can be used to buy souvenir clubs, conduct polls, and also calculate engagement packages including promotional packages with imbalances for their fans

I think it's a very good idea that cryptocurrency has begun to be glimpsed by football, and soccer is my most popular sport in the world, even though only Altcoin is sponsored and this is a good start for cryptocurrency in the field of sports.
and this is one example of cryptocurrency that will be global so that many people will adopt it in any field.

I am not really a fan of sports, however many are. Football is especially popular and people are passionate about it. It is an untapped market. If you could get sportsmen and women along with a cryptocurrency then you could really create a difference. There have been other projects that have tried the same but failed. I think bitcoin would do better but there needs to be a very good marketing team for introducing fans to cryptocurrencies.

Another industry that have recognize the crypto and making it's move to create some noise for crypto.
It is always great to have a new industry to use crypto and I think in the future we would see more company and other industry follow the same path .
I think soon enough we would see it getting accepted by every company and be used by everyone.

Is a good news for fun of sports who want to go to see live match and for this who have crypto and they can buy tickets or maybe also t-shirts if the management will let buy with crypto.

may be it's just sponsored but nonetheless it is a great news and it will bring more visibility towards bitcoin. Being in the sports is huge since you can easily get to millions of people and it would further push legitimacy of bitcoin.

Yup, that is correct they are the only one who accepts bitcoin and other altcoins in the football industry which is a big thing to all of us right. Having those sponsorships from cryptocurrency is a big thing. Adoption really happens right? What is the next step of crypto, I can't wait to see. I guess it is just the beginning of adoption. I hope the world will fully accept crypto.

Thus, it is expected that the club can mitigate the potential for price reductions that could occur due to the relatively high volatility of the crypto exchange rate in the spot market.
With the support of many parties to be able to start using crypto assets. With a support base of up to seven million supporters on social media, we also want to accommodate that by starting to adopt the use of crypto currencies

This is a good move by Benifica, at least it is an avenue to maximize revenue from their supporters. I believe soccer is a popular sports across the globe hence a good way to promote cryptocurrencies to many people all over the world.

This is not new and besides there are other altcoins also promoting a football game betting platform. But of course it is still bitcoin that matter most compared to altcoins. I just wish that football community will help cryptocurrency to grow more by utilizing bitcoin and other altcoin in the crypto market for football game betting, buying football game tickets and other sougviners for football.

now there are indeed many soccer clubs that work with the cryptocurrency industry, such as Arsenal, Juventus and others, so I was not surprised by the news provided by the OP

It was a good news for us that there are kind of sports that totally accepted bitcoin and now they can easily buy some accessories by the use of bitcoin and im sure it has a big impact for us that soccer community now will know bitcoin and also cryptocurrencies.

Great news! Always nice to see more and more people being able to use Bitcoin. And the diversity of the companies matters as well, because it shows that Bitcoin is not restricted in terms of use cases much. I remember an experiment with using Blockchain for purchasing tickets for sports games. The point of using Blockchain for that is to ensure there are no fake tickets. I wonder whether this company will stop on cryptos or will explore other use cases of Blockchain technology.

Not necessarily be use in buying of accessories but can be use for the payment of players transfers from one football club to another. This move is pretty much positive as the soccer platform look great if they actually will adopt the cryptocurrency into their system.   

If the Engeritoken can do that, why not couldn't other token do that as well. Sponsoring will cost but advertising is always been part of anything to make it known. BTC and ETH is already popular but yes the popularity of BTC and ETH will bring all crypto to life. Few months also, LTC logo were seen on the MMA cage, of course they sponsor the fight.

So, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore. Thanks to this.

Looks like football is one of the good target for marketing crypto currencies.
But yet, there are still other tokens related to them or should I say the one who really pushed into using bitcoin and ethereum plus their token. Just like this, where UTK is also added.

I want to see a better one where it is only bitcoin and Ethereum which will be accepted. That will be a good jump into making more people realize that something is being brewed in the internet which uses a better payment option rather than the traditional credit cards.

Thank you sir for making this information available to us. I am always happy whenever I do hear good news especially the news that deals with acceptability or adopting of bitcoin or any of the altcoins by the general public. This "Portuguese's soccer gaint" has really done great things by deciding to pay through bitcoin and I do believed that other soccers will start to used bitcoin and Cryptocurrency. This is a sign that bitcoin will resolve some of the transactions problems we are having and other coins are going to complement this great discovery.

Wow.great move by soccer giant. Crypto and soccer will be good combination in future.Imagine what will can do.Still in 1st step for using cryptos in soccer.But with a good plan soccer industry can reach to moon.When biggest show comng by every 4 years of gap.Imagine how many transaction will happen since day they announce the day of beginning.Then the cryptos will come in handy.

WoW.So thats mean it just not a useless rumors .Its worth that.Soccer industry reach for crypto. No money counting times,high customer satisfaction and much more more benefits can get when using cryptos. May be they have introduce a coin for that too."Soccer coin" may be .Easy to pay easy to have.If not they have to add both bitcoin and ETH for transaction.

They accept these bad coins for simply paying more. What moves them is money, if you doubt was paid a "fee" to be able to say that.

gradually cryptocurrency will be widely known by everyone even though there are still many lay people who do not know how it works but at least cryptocurrency support has been popularized by various world soccer clubs, this can have a positive impact on the growth of cryptocurrency users in the future

Even if this growth is wrong. Since this type of personnel would hardly remain in the world of the cryptos. I still believe that we need more than these sponsorships, which for me is something quite forced.

One by one and game after another if sponsorship shows up and bring many more crypto names around any wide venue of advertisement it will bring
a huge popularity among people who also have interest with this industry, this step can deliver bigger venue of investors and make the coin very interesting, aside from that, there's also similar actions that will happen from those who's  catering this venue.

it is not wrong, it is happening but it is slow because adoption is slow and despite all the growth that we had over the years we still mainly have the enthusiasts being more interested in bitcoin as a currency and use it as one but most others are only seeing it as an investment so we only see them invest in it and not use it anywhere which is why you don't see it be used like this.

It will gain more popularity with many other industry as we progresses as this technology is a revolution and countries which has adopted it have started to make a great progress and indeed helping businesses to flourish as well.

I don't get why you keep going on about shit coin this or that, it is both shit and non shit coin that make up the crypto ecosystem and am sure the shit and non shit can coexist in some ways,
People just go about shouting adoption yet they have no clue how the adoption will come about,
What i see is an opportunity for more exposure, wether through shit coin or not bottom line remains to gain exposure and adoption, rest is irrelevant.

Let them not use this method to scam people of their bitcoin cos the price of bitcoin fluctuates now and then. The idea is quite cool but there will some irregularities involve

This is excellent news for fans of this sport. Many fans are hoping that Bitcoin will be accepted soon and that has happened. Accepted Bitcoin will be a new opportunity to help the market grow and be well known. Do you have any articles about this, can you share the link here?

I think it will give an impact to the other sports if cryptocurrency can be used in the football industry. They will open their eyes, and they will try to use cryptocurrency only if they can get benefits from the cryptocurrency. People will use something if it could give benefits, and they still use that thing for a long time as long as they could still get the advantage. That is what will happen too with cryptocurrency in the future.

There is no hard way to know how bitcoin work, just simple you can tell to them bitcoin is payment system. That's is enough to make them understand, if they want more about bitcoin they will find it by themselves. There are many sources about bitcoin in google and I believe they will do it. Actually, before SL benfica decided to accept bitcoin for payment system in their store there are some team also who decided the same thing beforehand. 

Mark Cuban is pretty cool, why wouldn't he? - It's really nice to check that those news are 100% truth though.

That seems to be the go-to strategy right now when starting to use crypto and the Blockchain, create your own token. It's nice to deal with the volatility and probably some do it only because of the profit.

But if we seriously point towards the long term rewards(Which tends to be the greatest rewards by far), then we will stick to Bitcoin and ETH.

Adoption of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment is going to Ben gradual and with such moves by these clubs will open the eyes of many to see digital assets (cryptocurrencies) in another light. In the next few years, it will be massive in the sports arena.

This is a cheering signal that goes to show how much penetration bitcoin and crypto at large will have. More adoption in the coming years i see

Energi token really? This is really random. :-\
I just heard about this altcoin yesterday as it seems to have more marketcap then even dash atm from what I was watching from these youtubers last night.
If they are then no wonder they are pumping from under $2 to over $3 all the sudden. Altight most alt coins are pumping again all the sudden. ;)

in any case, all actions are aimed at getting real income.  Therefore, we should not be indignant as to which token is used by the football industry.  Moreover, their sponsorship in this regard is very well developed and it is not surprising that companies associated with the cryptocurrency market will participate in this too.

I do see this happening for a team based in Europe since they are more open in the crypto-industry, with the confirm partnership and sponsorship from one of the cryptocurrencies I suspect that they only did this move in order to receive some kind of financial gain from their partners since football clubs' other ways to earn money is through sponsorship so this might be the reason why they made this move. Maybe with some time now we will be seeing "Utrust" or "UTK" in their shirt logos as well.

I've always said that the more industries will cooperate with bitcoin, the better it will be for the development of crypto. Thus, people not only from financial, but also from various other areas will learn about bitcoin and will get used to it. And this in turn will help its scaling. And I see only positive news in this.

I think that is to be expected, I mean accepting BTC is very easy even there's platform for payment gateway that convert BTC directly to USD when sent to the hand of the merchants. Many merchants or company are not accepting BTC because they simply scared of new things, it's just a matter of time, it's like when internet first appear people are overreacting to it.

This is some promising news and it could actually lead to some new ways for crypto adaptation where companies could partner up with exchanges to provide more access and allow people who are interested in using their crypto to buy all kind of stuff, lately it seems there have been some really good news concerning bitcoin adoption and i hope that this keeps going and in no time at all we will be able to use our coins anywhere and everywhere.

I also found several apparel sites from football clubs also offering payment via bitcoin on their shopping sites. this is not new, but in the future this adoption is not only happening in the football industry, but all types of stores will receive payments with crypto or bitcoin as part of their marketing projects

For me, this only shows that they accept all kinds of money and form of payment. Nothing more besides

Being a realist and a bit of a skeptic is always good and you can see the situation in whole. nevertheless, Bitcoin is accepted now in other industries also. It is a good sign for all cryptocurrencies.

The main thing to understand the cryptocurrency is understood by the leaders of those areas of human life that are very important and which are the most popular in society.  This approach to the promotion of cryptocurrency will lead the cryptocurrency market to a completely different level.  If we assume that the players will receive a salary in Bitcoin, as well as football clubs will buy using other players' cryptocurrency, then this will in any case increase the value of the cryptocurrency.  To can imagine the number of fans in the world who would be happy to use cryptocurrency too.

It's true I also strongly believe that all online sites or the like will receive Bitcoin payments, and that it will be a lot of convenience for the bitcoin holders themselves, so there is no doubt in the future, there will likely be many more who use bitcoin payments or blockchain technology , of course where we know that soccer is the perfect place to promote bitcoin ...

Wow thats a very good news for us and hope so it is best  for bitcoin  market.. now the the people related to football industry, now they come to know about bitcoin currency.. its a good step...all the best..

Obviously  they are trying to earn more and more from bitcoin.. this is a good step well..More people also come to know about bitcoin..

Well this is very good news.. people related to football industry also get more earning from bitcoin.. people can invest their  money in cryptocurrency...

I see a huge benefit for the entire cryptocurrency market from the fact that cryptocurrency will be used in sports.  Until now, everyone who advertised their brand or brand with the help of football or another sport, all received extraordinary benefits.  Based on this, I believe the cryptocurrency will also become more popular thanks to the sport and increase the volume of investments.

We look forward to see more of this in the future, when thousand of fans begin to pay using cryptocurrencies then the power of centralization is over

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/24/arsenal-seals-major-sports-first-cryptocurrency-sponsorship-deal

This was the first real cryptocurrency sponsorship deal!
Arsenal and CashbetCoin

It was a good way to start. But, I do not see it as an association. Teams have stadiums and these are a form of potential marketing. Soon, CashBet simply made an advertisement.

Well it's a great initiative that this team has put up and this might also open doors for other crypto enthusiasts like myself to join such a team. After all i am for any startup that is seeking to push the adoption of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology. The football industry is one of the big industries in the world and if cryptocurrencies are to be used in its activities it would really propagate the use of cryptocurrencies.

I bet bitcoin is used in every industry already, but not wordwide.

Great sounds good for me and Imhave so many I hear some sports using crypto as payment for their players, anyways this new adoption are making another history for the crypto world. It's can bring for crypto to the popularization because football one of the most popular sports.

Holders of utrust coin are very lucky. I have friends qho worked for utrust during 2017. It was my repentance that I did not come early in this industry. Supposedly, I am also satisfying the achievements of utrust token. Well, I pray for them to make profits using their utk. More power to utk team and I am glad how they arrived on that popularity.

Yeah I did read it.. it's really amazing to see how the cryptos are expanding day after day.. but for me the best thing I did read lately was about CoinMarketCap sponsoring Beitar Jerusalem football team.. although there are not so big as a team themselves its already a good start as more people will be able to see the CoinMarketCap brand that directly promote cryptos

Bitcoin, have practically no common use. What really matters is Blockchain. This sim can be used in various sectors

Hopefully bitcoin will be used in all fields so we can make different transactions with it in the future.As long as massive adoption will take place as early as possible,then we will not wander anymore if bitcoin will be start accepting as a payment system in different aspects of life.

This is just a beginning, when years pass we can experience all these to happen with each and every industry. Now to the football industry there is a good sponsor who has made things differently, same as this we need good supportive sponsor on every industry. This will take the growth forward to the next level.