Gibraltar will have at least eleven new hodlers next season. Players for Premier Division Gibraltar United, the Rock’s leading professional football club, will take part of their pay in cryptocurrencies beginning next season, according to a report in The Guardian.

The move was arranged through the club’s owner Pablo Dana, an investor in the cryptocurrency Quantocoin. Dana, who arranged for a Quantocoin sponsorship of the football team in 2017, told The Guardian that all player contracts will include cryptocurrency provisions by next season. 

“I’m convinced that cryptocurrencies will be the unique method of payment in the next three to four years,” Dana told the Gibraltar Olive Press, a newspaper which serves the Rock’s population.

Dana added that the use of cryptocurrencies offers significant advantages for the players, many of whom come from countries with unreliable banking networks.  “Many of our players come from secluded regions of Egypt and Algeria, we don’t just have Gibraltarians playing for us and their banking structure isn’t as good,” he told the Olive Press.“I hate the concept of giving them cash, so Quantocoin fills the void.”

Quantocoin, which bills itself as a “revolutionary blockchain cutting edge banking platform for 3.8 billion people,” recently concluded its initial coin offering earlier this year.  It is not listed on Coinmarketcap, and does not appear to be traded on any exchanges. 

Although the coin is virtually unknown, it makes “perfect sense” for Gibraltar to lead the way in crypto payments, The Guardian says. Earlier this year, the government introduced regulations for blockchain businesses and set up the first regulatory frameworks for initial coin offerings, introducing transparency and legitimacy to crypto-fundraising. 

Crypto Briefing reported that the Gibraltar Stock Exchange had applied for an update to its license, that would allow the Exchange to trade security tokens online. The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) is also trying to replicate the success of online gambling in the small British dependency. 

Dana is not the first football tycoon to try to cash in on cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, a group of Barcelona players introduced “Olyseum,” an app for footballers to interact with their fans in exchange for cryptocurrency. 

The London Football Exchange has also proposed a native football token, and an amateur Turkish side became the first team to sign a player with Bitcoin in January. 

Following Gibraltar Utd’s announcement, Arsenal (nickname: The Arse) also announced a partnership with Cashbet, a California-based cryptocurrency payments company.

The author has investments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 

The post Gibraltar Football Club To Pay Players In Crypto appeared first on Crypto Briefing.