Bulgarian football club Botev Plovdiv adopts Bitcoin & Lightning Network, joins Nostr

File photo of Botev Plovdiv players (in yellow) in action; Photo by Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto/ Getty Images

Bulgaria’s oldest football club, Botev Plovdiv FC, has adopted Bitcoin and the Lightning Network payments in its operations. It has also established a web3 presence on the decentralised social protocol, Nostr.

Starting immediately, Botev will begin accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for its merchandise, available at the club's fan shops and central stands during matches. Soon, the Bitcoin payment option will be available to buy tickets and in the club’s online store.

As an incentive, Botev is offering the Bitcoin community in Bulgaria a 10% discount on all products purchased with Bitcoin in November 2023.

Botev has implemented this in partnership with BTCPayServer - an open-source payment processor facilitating Bitcoin and altcoin payments, both on-chain and through the Lightning Network, without any intermediary fees.

Nicolas Dorier, CEO and founder of BTCPayServer, while expressing his satisfaction with the collaboration, said, “Encouraging local adoption of Bitcoin has been our main focus this year. Seeing our open-source project working for local communities is extremely satisfying. We will continue to support such transformative endeavours.”

The club has also partnered with payment processor CryptoDesk.bg for technical assistance in integrating Bitcoin payments and with BitcoinizePOS for their Bitcoin point-of-sale (POS) terminals.

The president of Botev Plovdiv FC, Anton Zingarevich, is excited about this innovation. He said, “We are excited about this technology, which is creating new opportunities and has the potential to become an integral part of our lives, just as it happened with the Internet.”

Botev Plovdiv FC improved its digital presence recently. The club’s official website has been updated, and the English social media channels have been brought up to speed. 

Botev has also created an account on Nostr, a decentralised protocol that offers censorship-resistant social media platforms. It allows fans to keep up to date with Plovdiv. By implementing these innovations, Botev strives to modernise and popularise the game of football.

The move to embrace Bitcoin and decentralised technologies in football by Botev is, however, not new. Real Bedford, a United Kingdom-based football club, was the first in the world to adopt Bitcoin and initiate the trend. With new clubs like Botev joining the trend, the adoption of Bitcoin in football is growing rapidly.

Shashank is the founder of yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash