December 26, 2024 marks the 10 year anniversary of the "Bitcoin Bowl" of 2014. Remember that?
If you're unfamiliar with American sports...in American football, the best college teams play yearly in a bonus game called "bowl" games. (Called "bowls" because the stadiums are shaped like giant bowls.) These games are usually sponsored by corporations and/or industries, like the "Allstate Sugar Bowl" or the "Pop-Tarts Bowl."
And, yes, bitcoin did have its own college football bowl game, the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl which took place December 26, 2014. It was then commonly called the "Bitcoin Bowl." The idea was to raise bitcoin awareness. But, this was back in 2014. The consensus seems to be that the Bitcoin Bowl, and bitcoin, was viewed then as a cool curiosity. A weird geek money thing. Many game attendees really didn't know what bitcoin was, let alone what it was all about. And to be fair, they had attended that day to see a football game, not to be introduced to the most economics-changing concept since capitalism.
Nowadays, I think most people have at least heard of bitcoin. Back in 2014, I'm fairly certain that most people had not. And, given that we still seem to be in this same phase where the average person really doesn't understand bitcoin, the 2014 perception of bitcoin as an odd curiosity makes total sense.
Bitcoin Bowl I
Going back a year before that December 2024 Bitcoin Bowl, I started to set up what I called "Bitcoin Bowl I." Thinking back, this was crazy-thinking. This was 2013 and I was feeling like, "I'm too late, I can't buy bitcoin now at this price." (I know, I know. Deep sigh.) I wanted to earn some bitcoin, somehow, some way. I thought I might try to sell some advertising space. The biggest advertising hoopla was/is the Super Bowl, so, I figured I'd play off of that. Inspired by the concept of the Million Dollar Homepage, I would wrangle up a digital football stadium and sell items as ad space. Ad space is everywhere in a real stadium, so I figured I'd put it in a digital stadium. A mouseover of the ad item in the digital stadium would show one's visual ad (like holding up a poster sign at a WWE event) or it would serve as an active link to your website.
"Bitcoin Bowl I" was the name I dubbed it as. I began setting it up in December of 2013 in preparation for the Super Bowl which was to take place February 2, 2014. It looked like this:
And you can see a (sorta) live version is located at https://crrdlx.vercel.app/bitcoinbowl/index.html
I put out a very brief blog post of Bitcoin Bowl I on December 30, 2013. But, that's about as far as things got...I never really finished it, never really advertised it, didn't earn any bitcoin from ads, didn't get any donations at the original BTC address. (Note: I did update the "Donate" QR image for this post, just in case someone got to feeling generous with their sats. 😊. Plus, I really don't know if I still have control of that original address!)
It's worth noting...
Look how far bitcoin has come in the last 10 years. In 2014, the only option to "Donate" was an on-chain bitcoin address. Today, in 2024, look at all the options presented by coinos.io: Lightning Network, Ecash, on-chain, Liquid, Bolt12.
This is what we do: build, open source, push boundaries, innovate, improve, grow, repeat.
Unexpected
Writing this post, something totally unexpected occurred. I stumbled across this IMDB page about the Bitcoin Bowl football game. I have no idea why a sports game has an IMDB page, but, there it is. What caught my eye was "cast" member Bo Hines. Normally, I would not have recognized that name as anything special. But, just this past week, Hines was appointed by Trump as "executive director" to his promised crypto advisory board. Hmm, that's kind of interesting.
Looking into it, Hines played for NC State University as a freshman and NC State wound up as the Bitcoin Bowl winner.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Hines
This makes me wonder...(a) was the Bitcoin Bowl a pivotal moment in a young, 19-year-old Bo Hines' bitcoin journey?, (b) did "I played in the Bitcoin Bowl!" get mentioned when interviewed by Trump to help seal the deal, and (c), will we hear a "Bitcoin Bowl" reference dropped while in his new, official government role.
Gamefied
Totally forgotten to me until looking at Bitcoin Bowl I again today...I had a game built within the football game. Mousing over the "About" link in the top left, I'd forgotten that I'd detailed out a scoring system for a game featuring American football versus bitcoin. See "About" image below:
Looking back, that Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014 was between the Seahawks (NFC) and Broncos (AFC). It was a blowout with the Seahawks winning 43 to 8. So, using my NFC + AFC formula, the "football score" for that game was 4308. The "bitcoin score" for that date was 0825 (since one BTC was $825 then according to statmuse.com).
So, bitcoin lost Bitcoin Bowl I by a score of 4308 to 825. Ouch. Never bet against Las Vegas.
Bitcoin Bowl II?
For the sheer fun of it, why not do a Bitcoin Bowl II? This year's Super Bowl LIX is scheduled for February 9, 2025 in New Orleans. Could a new scoring system be created?
Due to bitcoin's success and rise to around $100K currently, the 2014 scoring system is outdated and won't work any longer. If I can come up with a scoring system that could be used to compare the football game's score to bitcoin in some way, we'll have A Bitcoin Bowl II. Gotta think on that one.
Enjoy the daily bitcoin drama and enjoy the bowl games.
I go by @crrdlx or "CR" for short. See all my links or contact info at https://linktr.ee/crrdlx.