Global impact of a Bitcoin soccer club: Decentralize with Cointelegraph

This week’s episode of the Decentralize with Cointelegraph podcast takes a deep dive into Bitcoin (BTC) in Bedford. A Bitcoiner from the English town near London is turning heads and raising his town’s profile after buying his local soccer club, Real Bedford.

Peter McCormack, who took the No. 38 spot on Cointelegraph’s 2023 Top 100, hosts a Bitcoin podcast and is an avid soccer fan. At the start of the soccer season in August 2022, he told Cointelegraph that winning the league would put Bedford on the Bitcoin map.

Nine months on, Real Bedford has fulfilled that promise. It won the United Kingdom’s South Midlands League and was promoted. However, has the move from the Bitcoin soccer club galvanized the locals or just grated on them? And how does running it work on the ground?

Cointelegraph traveled to Real Bedford’s final home game of the season to interview fans, locals and Bitcoin advocates from around the world to understand the whys and hows of the Bitcoin soccer club. From the club’s commentator to a Liberal Democrat councillor to well-known Bitcoin advocate Jeff Booth, this week’s podcast takes listeners on a whistlestop tour of Bedford.

An underdog story that explores themes of competition, community and Bitcoin awareness in the United Kingdom, it’s clear that Real Bedford has taken the Bitcoin community by storm.

Cointelegraph also caught up with McCormack pitchside during his What Bitcoin Did podcast live event to quibble about whether he was pursuing a personal passion project or the stakes were greater.

Moreover, with the price per Bitcoin still wallowing under $30,000, the production seeks to highlight that there is more than a speculative streak to the world’s largest cryptocurrency. McCormack explained:

“I think the thing about Bitcoin now is it’s not about Bitcoin. It’s Nostr, it’s Bitcoin, it’s mainstream media lies, it is poor governance and regulation.”

It’s not about “I’m going to get Bedford to buy Bitcoin,” he continued. He wants to be careful in curating the club’s image in the town,  and the Real Bedford website even has a blog post titled “Why you shouldn’t buy Bitcoin.”

The headline, however, is that this lower-league football team appears to be evolving into a bastion for Bitcoin adoption in the United Kingdom — listen to the Decentralize with Cointelegraph podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or your favorite platform to learn how.