U.S. Lugers Accepting Bitcoin Donations to Fund their Olympic Targets

The American Olympic luge team has announced that it is now accepting cryptocurrency as a donation for embodying its ambitions concerning the Olympic Games. Olympians began to accept cryptocurrency in December in the middle of the preparation process for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

The team posted on their website the following words:

“Both know all about speed, crashes, risk management, and holding on. Which is maybe why the US Luge Team and Bitcoin are made for each other.”

“Funds historically have been scarce, but the sport of luge has always been one to reward innovation and technology.”

The Olympians’ project received about $25 worth of Bitcoin as donations soon after one of its members had won a silver medal. However, such donations are still a drop in the ocean, it is supposed that they will become an essential part of further financial management.

Inception

Initially, the idea of donating Bitcoin was proposed by Ty Danco, a former Olympian luger. At the same time, he became the first investor in the project and donated some trading coins.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the luge team needs a whole lot more money,” Danco told Bloomberg in an interview.

Having started accepting digital currency donations in December, on the day of the Olympics opening ceremony they possessed 0.673 Bitcoins. At the time (February 9) that was around $5,400, according to the Bitcoin value rate posted on CoinDesk. This number increased to approximately $7,300, as of February 20.

Future Actions

As Chris Mazdzer won a silver award on February 11, the first one in the history of U.S. Olympic men’s single luge, there followed several cryptocoin donations. Three Bitcoin transactions worth about $25 as of February 20 were granted to the Olympians’ account. The amounts of coins were not as big as the team expected but it would not cash the money out yet.

He said:

“It’s just going to sit there and do nothing for at least three years. You know this is a long-term bet on the viability of Bitcoin.”