Bitcoin Baseball Team Perth Heat Fans Can Now ‘Boost’ Players With Bitcoin

Perth Heat players can now get bitcoin ‘boosts’ through a new Lightning-powered fan engagement feature launched in partnership with IBEX.

• Perth Heat now lets fans send micropayments to players with bitcoin through Lightning.
• The team last year became the first sports club to operate on a Bitcoin Standard.
• The new feature was worked on in collaboration with IBEX.

Bitcoin baseball team Perth Heat has launched a new Bitcoin-powered fan engagement feature.

Named “#sats4stats,” the feature lets fans and spectators send BTC to players in real time through Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, the peer-to-peer currency’s overlay protocol for cheap and fast payments. The feature was developed in collaboration with IBEX, the team’s official Bitcoin Lightning processor, and will be available starting on Perth Heat’s next game on November 11, 2022.

“Player/Fan interaction will have the potential to become a substantial source of player’s income and will no longer be solely dependent on organizations to supply their salary,” Perth Heat said in a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

“Each player will have a Lightning QR code linked to their profile for instant boost from any lightning wallet in the world. #Sats4stats will allow fans to send sats directly as the action unfolds at the ballpark or via live broadcast feed. Fans will be able to send messages to their favorite players and retweet their ‘boosts’,” per the statement.

Australian baseball team Perth Heat last year became the first sports team worldwide to begin operating on a Bitcoin Standard. Since then, the club has already begun paying players and staff in bitcoin and recently activated all concession stands with the ability to pay in bitcoin.

“Unlocking global fandom using the newest, fastest, safest payments technology in history is something to get excited about,” said Ry Sterling, VP of North America at IBEX, in a statement. “Never before has this been possible and we are just scratching the surface of activations and experiences for fan engagement.”