The FIFA World Cup Might Just Bump Bitcoin Ahead

Written by Shashwat Srivastava

The FIFA world cup is due to begin in a fortnight and it is going to affect Bitcoin in more ways than one, as the public gets ready to descend on Russia.

As the Kremlin works on its own domestic payment system Mir, Visa and MasterCard have lost much flow in the country when it comes to digital payments. As a result of US Sanctions back in 2014, they had already cut down the card services to Russian customers.

Customers, on the other hand, have already figured out ways around the transaction troubles: Cryptocurrency!

Fans all over the world are Bitcoin-ing their way to the football world cup in Russia, because they haven’t been left with many choices whatsoever. At the last World Cup in Brazil, over 5 million people visited the FIFA Fan Fest and 3.4 million people attended a game.

Hotels in the city of Kaliningrad have even endorsed their affinity to cryptocurrency and openly declared that they will be accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin as payment. Kaliningrad will be hosting four matches of the massive tournament, including those of Spain and England.

Anna Subbotina, Manager at the Malina Apartments Hotel Chain said:

“Cryptocurrencies are now enjoying increased interest. Gradually they will come into use as a means of payment. And we decided that the fans should be able to pay for our services with the help of this innovative technology. It may very well be that other hotels are awaiting our example for the forthcoming football holiday.”

Travel agents and bars and even airlines will among the few services that will be accepting Bitcoin for transactions.

The use of Bitcoin as a means of exchange is something the cryptocurrency has been struggling with since fees for sending Bitcoin spiked in December.

At its peak, there were roughly 400,000 Bitcoin transactions per day at the end of 2017 though this has now fallen back to around 200,000 transactions per day, and fees are back down with it.

 

you can read the original article on BTCWires.com here.

Alison McGuire

Recent Posts

Origina to Create 350 New Jobs as Part of Global Expansion Supported by Enterprise Ireland

Dublin-based IT services and consulting company Origina today announced a significant expansion of its operations in…

60 minutes ago

Kalmar Partners with TCS for Strategic AI-powered Transformation of its Enterprise IT Landscape

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting, and business solutions company, operating…

2 hours ago

Marine Institute’s SmartBay to play key role in evolving European ocean monitoring system

A new international study has proposed an operational strategy to advance the Digital Twin of…

3 hours ago

8 Irish game developers to launch game prototypes through pioneering IndieDev Fund

Irish game developers’ ability to punch above their weight in the competitive international games industry,…

5 hours ago

IT, Finance, and Construction top salary rankings according to IrishJobs

Leading hiring platform IrishJobs has today published new data that reveals professionals in the IT…

8 hours ago

Ireland cements position as Europe’s leading GDPR enforcer

Global law firm DLA Piper has today published the eighth edition of its annual GDPR…

3 days ago

More about Irish Tech News


Irish Tech News are Ireland’s No. 1 Online Tech Publication and often Ireland’s No.1 Tech Podcast too.


You can find hundreds of fantastic previous episodes and subscribe using whatever platform you like via our Anchor.fm page here: https://anchor.fm/irish-tech-news


If you’d like to be featured in an upcoming Podcast email us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie now to discuss.


Irish Tech News have a range of services available to help promote your business. Why not drop us a line at Info@IrishTechNews.ie now to find out more about how we can help you reach our audience.


You can also find and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.