Bitcoin Bowl Brings Virtual Currency to St. Pete
December 12, 2014 6:57 AM   Subscribe

The first Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl will be played on December 26 at Tropicana Field between N.C. State and UCF. The bitcoin processor BitPay bought the naming rights, paying for the deal in the virtual currency, and the event has grown beyond the game. A nearby town in a "Bitcoin Beach" initiative convinced 65 percent of its businesses to accept the currency, touting no transacation fees or chargebacks as incentive. Five bitcoin ATMs will be installed at the game and concessions will take it as payment. A sign that this isn't all bitvana, from the Tampa Tribune: "A downside to the coin is that its value fluctuates. But BitPay has offered area merchants the opportunity to accept it from customers and then receive the exact dollar amount of the transaction back into their bank accounts."
posted by rcade (60 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is actually brilliant: forcefully but painlessly injecting bitcoin into something so deeply entrenched into US society, and into smalltown America businesses.

It won't overnight turn Bitcoin into the new greenback, but as a PR piece, this is probably a near-perfect move.
posted by IAmBroom at 7:09 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


So a company promoting BitCoin has enough money to sponsor a bowl game and, potentially, take a hit on face-to-face transactions conducted around it. What purpose does BitCoin serve, here, except transferring the transaction fees from credit card companies to companies like BitPay? What advantage does this confer to consumers?

When huge players like Apple and Google are conducting tap-to-pay in local currency, it seems like similar services transacting in BitCoin are mostly for the Infowars crowd, no?
posted by uncleozzy at 7:16 AM on December 12, 2014 [10 favorites]


This isn't a bad marketing move from Bitcoin's perspective, but this is the former Beef O'Brady's Bowl, it's got a history of being something of a joke. I'm not sure that many people will take Bitcoin more seriously because they've managed to sponsor a match-up between the 5th best team in the ACC Atlantic and a team from the American. It'll get more people talking about Bitcoin, but I don't know that it will change their minds.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:17 AM on December 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


"It's just another currency," she said. "There's cash, credit or debit and now bitcoin. It's just like accepting credit cards, but with no card and no machine."
Oh, where to start. Well, cash, credit, and debit aren't all different currencies - they are all different ways (in this case) of accepting the US dollar.

It sounds like BitPay is offering a fixed rate for bitcoins to take the risk out of accepting the transaction from the merchant. Well, that's great (for the merchants). That being said, there's still the hassle of setting up a new way to accept money - this will cost all the merchants time, energy, and money to get this going.

I have a friend that has a business in Canada. He deals with US merchants (and customers), but most of his customers are in Canada. Most of the business he does is in Canada. But he has a US bank account. It really is a big deal when there is a 15% change in the exchange rate. He has to pay more for his merchandise, or he has to charge his US customers more, etc, etc. If there were a 50% change in the exchange rate (either way) it would be very very disruptive (potentially devastating).

If you were to tell him, hey dude, you should accept this new foreign currency. Oh yeah, right now it's worth a third of what it was worth a year ago, and next year it might be worth a tenth of what it's worth now, or it could be worth ten times as much - well, he'd take a pass on that.
posted by el io at 7:18 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Interesting! I have no strong opinion on bitcoin, but if it's going to go anywhere it'll be by making it not be a weird geeky internet thing that's at least as hard to get to grips with as installing a new computer program or three. That is to say, by doing stuff like this.

Can't say I'm particularly trusting of the people behind BTC though -- not so much the inventors or boosters, but the people who take it upon themselves to do initiatives like this, set up exchanges, etc. Seems to me like there've been quite a few scams, rip-offs and general shady opportunism in that area. So even if the merchants do indeed get their dollars for handing in their BTC, I do have to wonder if that nice chunk of BTC isn't going to be sold on elsewhere for a tidy profit. Or something like that!

Or is that just taken a given, the benefit of acting as 'the bank'?
posted by Drexen at 7:24 AM on December 12, 2014


Bitcoin is useful when you want to make a quick transfer and not deal with fees. Like for example, say you want to transfer funds to your South African bank account because you are a grad student in the states. You could do that at the airport and pay a fee, or you could do that yourself and pay a smaller fee. (A friend of mine just did this). It's just an alternative. Nothing earth shattering though.
posted by oceanjesse at 7:25 AM on December 12, 2014


Bulgaroktonos is right, this bowl game is a bit of a joke already, so I suppose being the only bowl game brought to you by the preferred currency of internet drug dealers is a good fit. As a UCF alumnus, I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand we're going to the St. Petersburg bowl for the third time, but on the other hand I get to work dunning-krugerrand into regular conversation.
posted by ddbeck at 7:30 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Most of the 39 bowls are a joke at this point, even if the title sponsor isn't a goofy one. But as a UNT alumnus I like that there are more potential postseason destinations for the schools outside the big conferences when they have a good season.

College football players and fans could do a lot worse than St. Petersburg in December. I've been to Madeira Beach and Treasure Island a few times to see MLB playoff games at the Trop. It's an easy drive from the beaches to the stadium -- only about six miles and you avoid highway traffic hassles.

I wonder if boosters could pay college football players under the table in bitcoin without it being traceable.
posted by rcade at 7:32 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


I live close enough that I ride my bike past Tropicana Field all the time. A bike trail crosses the property. So, I got set up to take Bitcoin figuring that I could do a little busking and hope that the novelty of being able to take tips in Bitcoin might be worth a few bucks. Should be an interesting experiment.
posted by lordrunningclam at 7:32 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Bitcoin is useful when you want to make a quick transfer and not deal with fees. Like for example, say you want to transfer funds to your South African bank account because you are a grad student in the states. You could do that at the airport and pay a fee, or you could do that yourself and pay a smaller fee. (A friend of mine just did this).

It's true that Bitcoin transmittal is cheaper if it's the whole pipeline (say, your paycheck is in Bitcoin and the majority of your expenses on the other end are in Bitcoin), but I've looked at USD to foreign currency remission cases and for larger amounts of money the difference in fees is eaten up by having to transfer money more times - USD to bitcoin to foreign currency rather than just USD to foreign currency. There is a "spread" between buying and selling bitcoin that can be pretty significant.
posted by muddgirl at 7:36 AM on December 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


"What advantage does this confer to consumers?"

Well, you can spend the bitcoin you earned from selling dope on hotdogs and beer, for one. So that's a thing.
posted by el io at 7:40 AM on December 12, 2014


Touchdowns will be awarded a value between 3 and 1200 points.
posted by malocchio at 7:45 AM on December 12, 2014 [30 favorites]


Stop tying to make fetch Bitcoin happen; it's not gonna happen.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:54 AM on December 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


Stop tying to make fetch Bitcoin happen; it's not gonna happen.

Yeah, it's basically over.
posted by empath at 7:58 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


I was overrun by neckbeards when my boss at a microbrewery decided to have a "Bitcoin night". A company came in and handled all the promotion for the event, up to a contest to win a PT Cruiser or $10,000 in BTC (not sure which I'd want less...)

Accepting Bitcoin is easier than credit cards, and we did a fair amount of sales from the promotion, but I've never had a worse night for tips in my life. Everyone of them, to a person, sheepishly muttered "I don't carry cash" after I put the beers down. When one guy had the temerity to suggest I accept BTC for tips, I hollered that I can't pay my bills with bitcoin.

Good on somebody for getting this on the map, but it's the people who use the currency that are the ambassadors for it, and I don't see them winning any hearts and minds.
posted by rocketman at 7:59 AM on December 12, 2014 [16 favorites]


If you were to tell him, hey dude, you should accept this new foreign currency. Oh yeah, right now it's worth a third of what it was worth a year ago, and next year it might be worth a tenth of what it's worth now, or it could be worth ten times as much - well, he'd take a pass on that.

Most bitcoin processors lock in the price and give you dollars, not bitcoins.
posted by empath at 8:00 AM on December 12, 2014


I don't care about college football, but if if had been the DogeCoin Bowl? And they'd put a logo with the dog (like this) at midfield? Hell yes, I would watch that.

Yes, I still think Doge is funny.
Yes, I am a loser.

posted by The Card Cheat at 8:00 AM on December 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


The first Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl

I was disappointed to find that this doesn't involve flipping a bitcoin repeatedly until it turns up tails in order to point up the sometimes counterintuitive nature of expected value.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:08 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


When one guy had the temerity to suggest I accept BTC for tips, I hollered that I can't pay my bills with bitcoin.

But you can buy weed with bitcoin, can't you? And then you can trade that weed for money, right?

That being said, I remember a stoner a decade or so ago seriously remarking that we should have a weed based currency. While the idea sounded like a stupid stoner idea at the time, it still makes more sense to me than bitcoin.

I also thought facebook and twitter were the most stupid things I had ever heard of. So you might want to 'invest' in bitcoins.
posted by el io at 8:10 AM on December 12, 2014


you can trade that weed for money, right?

I think there is a term for this.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:12 AM on December 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


I am still confused, as I am sure I am misunderstanding what bitcoin ATMs are. ATM stands for automatic teller machine, I walk up, I give my bank account info in the form of a card and PIN and they give me cash from my account. In my world, and ATM gives you hard cash money that you can then use to buy anything, from hotdogs to cocaine and everything in between. These bitcoint ATMs allow you to transform your money into bitcoins. I want a beer at a football game. Why would I do that? I either want cash to pay the guy in the stands or I can just use my card at the beer stand in the back.

Besides being a dubious investment vehicle, my understanding was that the benefit of bitcoin was acting like cash in a digital setting. But why would I want to do that in real life? (I'm looking at this from the perspective of some average guy at the game.)
posted by Hactar at 8:13 AM on December 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


What purpose does BitCoin serve, here, except transferring the transaction fees from credit card companies to companies like BitPay? What advantage does this confer to consumers?

Right now one of the benefits is that the current credit card companies have built a very strong global oligopoly with a large enough barrier to entry that competition isn't much of a concern. Companies like BitPay will probably have to cut more costs and provide better services to stay in business rather than just engaging in rent seeking. Of course eventually some day BitPay or some other company might be the next Visa and we'll end up in the same place, but for the time being competition is a good thing in my opinion. I think the main positive aspect of BitCoin and similar currencies over any traditional currency right now is the fact that it's designed for being transferred easily and cheaply to anyone online, which is unnecessarily cumbersome using current methods. Eventually there will be some way to do the online equivalent of handing someone $20 in real life with none of the downsides of the current online options (fees, currency conversion, lack of anonymity, etc.)
posted by burnmp3s at 8:15 AM on December 12, 2014


How much overlap is there between die-hard bitcoin aficionados and your typical football crowd? Pretty much all the BC fans I know are fierce libertarian neckbeards with a healthy disdain for organized sports.
posted by monospace at 8:18 AM on December 12, 2014


Hactar: The game's concessionaires will be accepting bitcoin.
posted by rcade at 8:23 AM on December 12, 2014


When huge players like Apple and Google are conducting tap-to-pay in local currency, it seems like similar services transacting in BitCoin are mostly for the Infowars crowd, no?

I'm increasingly convinced that the popularization of digital currency will probably happen in conjunction with a commercial service many people already use, and will not have strong crypto features.
posted by kewb at 8:23 AM on December 12, 2014


kewb: Why wouldn't it have strong crypto features? I can see crypto-currencies not having anonymity features, but crypto is kind of the glue for security (you can use the wrong kind of glue, you can use glue incorrectly, but you still want some glue).
posted by el io at 8:25 AM on December 12, 2014


The game's concessionaires will be accepting bitcoin.

I would love it if they ONLY accepted bitcoin.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:25 AM on December 12, 2014


rcade: Will they not be accepting cash or debit cards? The bitcoin ATMs seem to add an extra step (or two) into the purchase of products from vendors. (Also ignoring the fact that they are automatic money changers (converting from one currency to another, not acting like a bank teller), not ATMs.)
posted by Hactar at 8:30 AM on December 12, 2014


kewb: Why wouldn't it have strong crypto features? I can see crypto-currencies not having anonymity features, but crypto is kind of the glue for security (you can use the wrong kind of glue, you can use glue incorrectly, but you still want some glue).

For the same reason phone companies and software companies build in backdoors for the NSA and the Chinese government today.
posted by kewb at 8:35 AM on December 12, 2014


I'm increasingly convinced that the popularization of digital currency will probably happen in conjunction with a commercial service many people already use, and will not have strong crypto features.

Bitcoin doesn't use crypto for secrecy, just uses the hashing function as proof of work.
posted by empath at 8:36 AM on December 12, 2014


What purpose does BitCoin serve, here, except transferring the transaction fees from credit card companies to companies like BitPay? What advantage does this confer to consumers?

The other huge win for Bitcoin over regular currency is international transactions. Currently, the act of sending someone in say Belgium 100 Euros is a royal pain in the ass but where fees on each end, even for electronic wire transfers can cost $35USD to send and 15 Euro to accept, and it's ludicrous. If both sides can exchange bitcoin for local cash, then it's painless and easy to send a friend half a bitcoin and have them convert on their end.

Unfortunately, moving money easily overseas is kind of against what financial and political organizations want, so they're not fans of it.
posted by mathowie at 8:46 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


At the end of 2013 I wrote a post titled “Bitcoin is evil,” riffing off Charlie Stross’s “Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire.” Charlie and I both keyed in on the obvious ideological agenda: Bitcoin fever was and is intimately tied up with libertarian anti-government fantasies…

Bitcoin may be sold as a technical marvel, and it does indeed solve an interesting information problem — although it’s not at all clear whether solving that problem has any economic value. But the psychology and sociology of the phenomenon are the same old same old.

Paul Krugman, "The Long Cryptocon"
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:52 AM on December 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


Bitcoin doesn't use crypto for secrecy, just uses the hashing function as proof of work.

Clearly cryptocurrency and discussions thereof are not for me.
posted by kewb at 9:08 AM on December 12, 2014


if > 51% of all the fans are rooting for the same team, can they secretly pool their fandom together and award all the points in the game to their team?
posted by xbonesgt at 9:09 AM on December 12, 2014 [11 favorites]


I'm anti-BitCoin and pro-DogeCoin due to BitCoin's having a worse Gini coefficient than any nation, uncleozzy, but consumers do benefit from "transferring [some] transaction fees from credit card companies to companies like BitPay", because that means more competition and lower transaction fees overall.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:29 AM on December 12, 2014


Just fyi, there are crypto-currency schemes that actually provide a measure of real anonymity, as opposed to the pseudo-anonymity provided by BitCoin.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:32 AM on December 12, 2014


What purpose does BitCoin serve

It's fantastic for black markets.
posted by Nelson at 9:34 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


They're giving it a shot with the ridiculous ATMs, but when other bowls are extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars directly from Bahamian taxpayers for a bowl that no one wants sponsored by a company that doesn't operate in the Bahamas (using contracts signed by unauthorized governmental officials), it's clear that the BitCoin Bowl has a ways to go before they reach the true heights of corruption and graft that all minor bowls aspire to.
posted by Copronymus at 9:35 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


No one else has cited "The Great Simoleon Caper"?
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:38 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Since Bitcoin can handle like 7 transactions a second maximum, how many days will it take for the blockchain to verify all of the purchases at this event in the exceedingly unlikely scenario that all transactions are in BTC?

At least when pets.com had a bowl game they had Michael Ian Black doing the voice of the puppet.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:44 AM on December 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


Certain rules have been eased for the BitBowl to help make the public more understanding of how Bitcoin works.
1. The two coaches are expected to customize their mining rig. To simulate this, they are allowed to put as many players on the field as they would like. For every additional 11 people on each side, an additional football is added to the game.
2. For any score to be recorded, the player crossing the goal line must properly list off the time of the event along with all prior events leading to stoppage, scores, penalties, out of bounds, etc. The refs must acknowledge the chain is complete. Failure to complete the chain results in the refs rejecting the chain and nullifying the points.
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:53 AM on December 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


Bitcoin doesn't use crypto for secrecy, just uses the hashing function as proof of work.

and

Bitcoin may be sold as a technical marvel, and it does indeed solve an interesting information problem —

makes me think that we're actually not using BC for what it's good at. One of the perennial problems in crypto is trusting trust, and if BC is 'showing your work', why can't you use the math in the blockchain as a starting point to .. idunno .. negotiate a .. uh ..

This, obviously, is where my understanding breaks down.
posted by eclectist at 10:06 AM on December 12, 2014


The other huge win for Bitcoin over regular currency is international transactions. Currently, the act of sending someone in say Belgium 100 Euros is a royal pain in the ass but where fees on each end, even for electronic wire transfers can cost $35USD to send and 15 Euro to accept, and it's ludicrous. If both sides can exchange bitcoin for local cash, then it's painless and easy to send a friend half a bitcoin and have them convert on their end.

Can someone explain this to me? Won't the users on both ends still have to pay the conversion fees?

To use this example, sender converts USD to BTC, receiver converts BTC to EUR. Do companies like BitPay or whoever processes these transactions not charge any fees for the transactions?

If they do, what's the difference from what the banks/credit card companies are doing? If not, how do these companies make money processing transactions? Or are you saying the fees are just lower?
posted by Sangermaine at 10:12 AM on December 12, 2014


uncleozzy: What advantage does this confer to consumers?
What advantage is conferred to the consumer by Coke sponsoring an F1 driver?
posted by IAmBroom at 10:19 AM on December 12, 2014


Um ... I was talking about using Bitcoin for face-to-face transactions. Not the sponsorship. And the point remains. From a consumer standpoint, unless the difference in merchant fees is large enough to be passed on, this seems like a pretty lousy application for Bitcoin.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:50 AM on December 12, 2014


Since Bitcoin can handle like 7 transactions a second maximum

The transaction limit is hardcoded into the bitcoin client, because it was designed for a huge network of cheap pcs running on low bandwidth connections. With the mining pool centralization in datacenters with huge pipes, it's a relatively simple thing to increase the cap with a patch whenever it's needed.
posted by empath at 10:59 AM on December 12, 2014


To use this example, sender converts USD to BTC, receiver converts BTC to EUR. Do companies like BitPay or whoever processes these transactions not charge any fees for the transactions?

They're extremely low fees.
posted by empath at 11:02 AM on December 12, 2014


If both sides can exchange bitcoin for local cash, then it's painless and easy to send a friend half a bitcoin and have them convert on their end.

That's a pretty big if.

Yeah, it's basically over.

Headline: Microsoft now accepts Bitcoin for Xbox and Windows digital content
Except that it's not. Microsoft is taking USD from BitPay. Taking USD from people who want to give it to them seems like a smart move.

BitPay is pretty interesting. AFAIK it's the only serious payment processor for bitcoin? And they're doing it without a fee to the vendor, which is pretty impressive. I'm curious how they're making money. Floating on VC funding?

...it's a relatively simple thing to increase the cap with a patch whenever it's needed.

So we should see that by December 26th for the Bitcoin Bowl?
posted by ODiV at 11:02 AM on December 12, 2014


They're extremely low fees.

Coinbase, for one example, has a 1% fee both ways (although they currently waive this for low-volume merchant accounts). Plus the current spread in their buy price vs. their sell price is around 0.1% A roughly 2.1% fee end-to-end isn't extremely low. You might be thinking of miner fees which are payed in BTC to process wallet-to-wallet transfers. Those are indeed pretty low for most transactions.

On top of that, some banks may charge ACH fees for their end of the transaction. If done via credit card, the banks may charge a fee for that.
posted by muddgirl at 11:15 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh right, Coinbase too. Do they give you USD right away too? I thought it was only BitPay. I'll read up on them.
posted by ODiV at 11:18 AM on December 12, 2014


With the mining pool centralization in datacenters with huge pipes, it's a relatively simple thing to increase the cap with a patch whenever it's needed.

With the mining pool centralization, a 51% majority player can double spend coins and freeze out other BitCoin users. Don't worry though, they pinkie-swear not to do it.

Also increasing the transaction capacity is not as simple as just tweaking a few parameters. It's possible in theory, but ultimately Bitcoin's design requires a single public ledger of all transactions that every Bitcoin user (in theory) shares. It's not exactly scaleable unless you posit wallet services that do the heavy lifting, in which case a lot of the nifty advantages of Bitcoin are mooted. (See also: Mt. Gox. Funny how after that largest of Bitcoin frauds was shut down the price stabilized.)
posted by Nelson at 11:24 AM on December 12, 2014


If anyone is curious about bitcoin ATMs, here are the affable Will and Norm of tested.com trying to use one in Austin earlier this year. It's quite entertaining.
posted by Corinth at 11:27 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Touchdowns will be awarded a value between 3 and 1200 points.

You, sir, win today's Internets!
posted by Thorzdad at 11:31 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


trying to use one in Austin earlier this year

This is amazing. They say the experience in the new ATMs (which will appear at the bowl game) is "streamlined" and takes debit cards, but ... doesn't the ATM incur a transaction fee, since I'm purchasing a product from it?

This just seems like such a mindblowingly silly stunt that even hardcore Bitcoin fans have to think it's ridiculous... right? Right?
posted by uncleozzy at 11:46 AM on December 12, 2014


>> Touchdowns will be awarded a value between 3 and 1200 points.

> You, sir, win today's Internets!


Yes, I'm trying to figure out how to award them 0.01387 favorites.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:47 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Corinth: Brilliant video! Spoiler alert - they bought a wonderful taco; it cost them about 650$USD to do so.
posted by el io at 11:57 AM on December 12, 2014


Incidentally I'd be very interested in the rate that bitpay offers to their clients who choose to settle some or all of their merchant account in cash. In recent AMAs and interviews they claim that they can offer a completely free basic tier to merchants because they have two higher-cost support tiers. But I can't imagine that they're not making money by being strategic about when they sell BTC for dollars/euros as well.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not exactly risk-free for merchants and it does hide the true cost of doing business through bitpay.
posted by muddgirl at 12:23 PM on December 12, 2014


I think the point is to leave the George Sorosesque types behind. And a jewel thief wouldn't touch them.
As a structured and stable fiat, sure why not.
Empaths link was a good read. The phrase "mysterious cryptocurrency" is a hoot.
Nice post and
Bitcoin/ColoradOanOregon
posted by clavdivs at 8:12 PM on December 12, 2014


The other huge win for Bitcoin over regular currency is international transactions.

Not in my experience. I send money to Indonesia and pay about 2% using RIA. The same transaction costs me more in BitCoin, because I have to pay a transaction fee and a spread on the USD to BitCoin conversion, then I pay the BitCoin network fee (typically the only fee that BitCoin promoters mention), then the recipient pays a transaction fee and a spread on the BitCoin to usable currency conversion.

In short, BitCoin is more complicated, more time intensive, more expensive, and adds risk to my most common international transaction.

I also found that BitCoin costs were much harder to evaluate, because a lot of 'free' BTC services are actually hiding fees in their exchange rates.
posted by grudgebgon at 5:14 AM on December 13, 2014 [3 favorites]


Bitpay, inserting the middle-man, where the middle-man isn't needed anymore.
posted by pashdown at 8:59 AM on December 13, 2014


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