The Australian Football League (AFL) has signed a deal with Crypto.com, one of the largest digital currency exchange firms in the world. Unfortunately, the deal has not made everyone happy.
The AFL and Crypto.com Have Formed a Partnership
The partnership is set to last a whopping five years, and Crypto.com will be the official crypto exchange and trading platform for both the AFL and the AFLW. Presently, Crypto.com also has deals with large sports leagues and organizations throughout the world including the fighting organization known as the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and racing league Formula One. Crypto.com recently made headlines for an ad it ran starring Oscar-winner Matt Damon, and they will be running a second ad with the actor during the Super Bowl in February.
Gillon McLachlan – the AFL’s chief executive – stated in an interview:
Cryptocurrency is a dynamic and emerging industry, and the AFL is delighted to partner with Crypto.com to be at the forefront of the industry’s growth in Australia.
As grand as all this sounds, the partnership between the AFL and Crypto.com is causing some backlash with some spectators, one being Reverend Tim Costello of the Alliance for Gambling Reform. He believes that in joining hands with Crypto.com, the AFL is inviting an organization in that promotes behavior worse than gambling, and thus the AFL is harming its own reputation.
In a statement, Costello explained:
The sport is meant to be a sport, and all these add-ons just because they say they need the money chip away at the integrity of the sport. You are literally corrupting and compromising the sport with all these other alternatives.
He also stated that the AFL has a long history with sports betting, which makes him “suspicious” regarding the deal with Crypto.com. Costello says:
The AFL has really immoral form, utterly immoral form on this. AFL clubs have got out of pokies, by and large, but the AFL hasn’t moved an inch on Sportsbet and saturation ads.
Not long ago, news came about that Crypto.com had been hacked. Several customers took to Twitter and other social media outlets to inform listeners that they had been kicked out of their accounts and they had even lost money in the process. In response to these formal complaints, Crypto.com put out a statement mentioning:
We have a small number of users reporting suspicious activity on their accounts. We will be pausing withdrawals shortly, as our team is investigating. All funds are safe.
What Happened, Exactly?
Kris Marszalek – the top executive at the digital exchange – says that no customer funds have been lost at the time of writing. Kris says:
The downtime of withdrawal [infrastructure] was [about] 14 hours. Our team has hardened the infrastructure in response to the incident. We will share a full post-mortem after the internal investigation is completed.
Source: https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/crypto-com-joins-hands-with-the-afl/