Baseball Fans Can Now Instantly Receive Bitcoin After Perth Heat’s Most Exciting Plays

A new Lightning partnership will let Perth Heat fans scan QR codes after stolen bases and home runs, rewarding them with bitcoin instantly.

The Perth Heat, the Australian Baseball League’s most successful baseball team, has announced a new partnership that rewards fans in bitcoin every time a player from Perth Heat steals a base or hits a home run.

The partnership with Bitrefill, Wallet of Satoshi and IBEX will allow fans to “Steal Sats” by scanning a QR code displayed on the game stream or on the team's social media channels when a player makes an impressive play. Fans will receive their reward instantly after scanning the code with a Lightning-enabled wallet, introducing a novel fan interaction system that brings further excitement to thrilling moments in games.

"We are thrilled to be launching Stealing Sats in partnership with Bitrefill, Wallet of Satoshi, and IBEX," Steven Nelkovski, CEO of the Perth Heat, said in a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. "This is an innovative way to engage with our fans and offer them something new and exciting. We believe this program will further enhance the fan experience and incentivize our players to push themselves to achieve their best on the field."

The baseball team made headlines in 2021 when they adopted a Bitcoin standard and integrated Lightning, becoming the first professional sports team to do so. Afterwards, the Heat proved their desire to further integrate Bitcoin, widely introducing Lightning services to their stadium and fan experiences. The team then announced “sats4stats,” which is a way to boost fans’ favorite players through the Lightning Network.

The latest introduction of Stealing Sats is simply another innovation for the team using Bitcoin and Lightning.

Ry Sterling, business development at IBEX, described how they seek to play a role in revolutionizing fan engagement, saying, “At IBEX our focus is spreading innovation via the Lightning network and with the lead from Perth Heat, #stealingsats and #satsforstats has opened our eyes to a whole new market of global fandom that we had not considered before.”

Chris Pavlesic, Bitrefill’s Australia manager, said that "With Stealing Sats, fans can now participate in the game in a whole new way, and we are excited to see how this will continue to evolve over time."

Daniel Alexiuc, CEO at Wallet of Satoshi added, "The whole team at Wallet of Satoshi is really excited about Stealing Sats with Perth Heat … It's such an innovative way to demonstrate that Bitcoin is easy and it is for everybody.”