Key Points
- Real Bedford FC has purchased an additional 66.9 Bitcoin to increase its treasury.
- The English football club plans to use some of its Bitcoin holdings for football-related endeavors.
Real Bedford FC (RBFC), a non-league English football club, has increased its Bitcoin holdings by acquiring more of the cryptocurrency. The club, owned by Peter McCormack, spent $4.5 million to purchase 66.9 BTC.
The digital assets were bought at an average price of $67,220 per BTC. This purchase has increased the club’s total Bitcoin reserve to around 82.7 BTC. RBFC, also known as the “Bitcoin football team”, has so far spent a total of $5.37 million on its Bitcoin treasury.
Application of Bitcoin Holdings
RBFC has plans to use 15.8 BTC from its holdings for football-related activities. The remaining funds will be used to enhance its treasury.
The club embarked on its Bitcoin acquisition journey in June of the previous year. McCormack, the chairman, had plans to revitalize the struggling football team and the deprived town of Bedford through Bitcoin adoption. He believed that this move would attract the crypto community and thereby increase the club’s fan base.
To show its support for Bitcoin, the club even branded its jersey with the BTC logo. It also accepts Bitcoin payments for all its merchandise.
Investments and Partnerships
As expected, the football club has caught the attention of the crypto community. The Winklevoss twins invested $4.5 million in the team in April 2024. McCormack announced that the Bitcoin investment was received from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss through their company, Winklevoss Capital. The duo was also named co-owners of the English club.
A few months after the first investment from the Winklevoss brothers, the club secured another partnership within the crypto industry. RBFC inked a multi-year sponsorship deal with Gemini, a crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss brothers.
Although RBFC is still a non-league football club, it has gained popularity over the years. The club’s management is known for its innovative approaches and willingness to embrace new technologies and strategies, which made it easy for them to go all in on Bitcoin.
Last year, RBFC won the United Kingdom’s South Midlands League for the 2023 season. The match was attended by many fans from around the world, who flew in to support the club.
Bitcoin Investments in a Broader Context
The club’s latest Bitcoin purchase comes at a time when institutional investors have developed a strong appetite for the crypto asset. Recently, “Asian MicroStrategy” Metaplanet announced that it had purchased an additional 20.381 BTC worth around 200 million yen ($1.27 million) to complete its initial plan of acquiring 1 billion yen worth of the crypto asset.
The Japanese company now holds a total of 245.992 BTC, which was purchased at an average price of 9.96 million yen (about $63,250) per BTC. The Tokyo-listed firm took a page from MicroStrategy’s playbook in May when it announced plans to embrace Bitcoin as its reserve asset.
However, data shows that Metaplanet made its first Bitcoin purchase in April before the announcement and has since then continued to increase its holdings. Following the news of its latest Bitcoin purchase, Metaplanet’s shares rose 21%, as shown on Google Finance data.