Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC) and other cryptocurrencies supported by BitPay are now accepted by the London Lions, a top U.K. basketball club.

This is made possible by a newly announced collaboration between the U.K.’s premier basketball team and cryptocurrency payments processor BitPay.

New Partnership alert
@BitPay

Read more about our partnership with BitPay – the world’s largest provider of bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services. https://t.co/C72RsnRuT1#wearelondon #BitPay

— London Lions (@LondonLions) February 1, 2023

The collaboration, the first of its kind between BitPay and a U.K. basketball team, will allow fans to make transactions with the club using more than 100 different cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets, including Coinbase, Exodus Wallet and Trust Wallet.

Aside from Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Litecoin (LTC), the London lions will be able to receive crypto payments from its fans, including Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), ApeCoin (APE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Polygon (MATIC), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and XRP [outside the United States]; USD-pegged stablecoins (BUSD, DAI, GUSD, USDC and USDP); and EUR pegged stable coin (EUROC), all supported by BitPay.
 
BitPay will work with the team as part of a long-term commitment to enhance financial literacy and public awareness about cryptocurrencies as part of the partnership, while also prioritizing the fan community.

The Dallas Mavericks basketball team, owned by billionaire Mark Cuban, is said to have been the first business to accept Dogecoin through BitPay in March 2021. Dallas Mavericks supporters could use Dogecoin to pay for team gear and game tickets.

Bill Lee, the chairman of MyDoge, used Dogecoin last year to buy all 25 fire-tier editions of the Aliens, a Big3 team. Rapper Ice Cube and others co-founded the professional 3-on-3 basketball league, BIG3.

Dogecoin stole the limelight as two members belonging to the DOGE-backed Aliens basketball team win midseason awards as per the announcement.

Bill Lee, the founder of the self-custodial Dogecoin wallet- MyDoge, had teamed up with Aliens by purchasing all 25 ‘Fire’ tier NFTs in a bid to win the BIG3 championship trophy. Lee paid nearly 4.6 million DOGE.

The purchase of all 25 ‘Fire’ tier Aliens NFTs cost around $625,000, making the deal the ‘largest commercial transaction in the history of cryptocurrency.’

For those unfamiliar, Big3 is a 3-on-3 basketball league co-founded by rapper Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, comprising of 12 teams. The team’s rosters consist of former NBA and international players.

Aliens also prominently wore Dogecoin on their team jerseys in their most recent matches. The latest win has definitely put the popular meme coin back in the public eye.

Dogecoin Hackathon Is Coming Soon?

In other news, Dogecoin’s Twitter account has recently retweeted a thread from Timothy Stebbing, the coin’s Foundation Director, where he asks if DOGE developers would be willing to participate in a Hackathon.

“Calling [email protected]_devs [and aspiring] in the doge ecosystem. I’m trying to get a feel for numbers/feasibility,” the tweet began.

He then posted two pools, one of which he asked if devs would participate for the prize or just for fun. Next, he wanted to know if participants are willing to travel to a certain destination, participate in person, mix with other devs and get to know each other.

No other details have been shared yet.

Meanwhile, co-founder Jackson Palmer has denounced video hosting giant YouTube in a recent tweet berating the latter for failing to crack down on Elon Musk-related scam live streams.

Dogecoin’s Co-Founder Slams YouTube For This

Palmer has managed to receive plenty of scam streams by simply searching the tech billionaire’s name. He then cited a theory where the real reason behind YouTube;’s failure to prevent the issue is that stopping Elon Musk’s scam streams would eventually cut down its ad revenue channels. “That’s just really disheartening if the case,” the Dogecoin co-creator lamented.

Dogecoin once again stole the show as two members of the DOGE-backed Aliens basketball team snapped up midseason awards. 

Dogecoin became part of the Big3 basketball league as Bill Lee, founding chairman of MyDoge, a self-custodial Dogecoin wallet, bought all 25 fire-tier editions of Aliens, a team in Big3.

Two members of @MyDogeOfficial #Dogecoin sponsored @thebig3 team Aliens won mid-season awards. @DeStephenS23 won Defensive Player of the Year and Rick Mahorn won Coach of the Year! Make sure to cheer them & @MrBullutproof on tomorrow at 3pm ET on @CBS!https://t.co/trdQJz0AqY pic.twitter.com/Rn5vOOMPVh

— Dogecoin (@dogecoin) July 16, 2022

The Big3 league decided to sell 25 fire-tier NFTs in April, which granted new owners control of the Killer 3s’ licensing, intellectual property (IP) and league-approved items.

As a result of the purchase, Big3 Aliens adopted Dogecoin, resulting in the integration of the MyDoge wallet, which allows players, coaches and teams to earn Dogecoin tips on Twitter with only a tweet. Aliens also prominently wore Dogecoin on their team jerseys in their most recent matches.

Dogecoin Core release launch nears

According to recent information shared on Twitter, the Dogecoin Core release 1.14.6 might launch soon as the release notes are currently in progress. The update hopes to include important security updates and changes to network efficiency.

Pupdate regarding #dogecoin Core release 1.14.6 https://t.co/5WHmC4KAx1

— Dogecoin Developers (@dogecoin_devs) July 16, 2022

The Core release is also meant to include fixes that harden node and network security and also change the recommended dust limit for all participants of the Dogecoin network from 1 DOGE to 0.01 DOGE.

With a very low block interval, Dogecoin aims to give users an inexpensive way to make transactions. A dust disincentive was introduced in 2014 to fight on-chain spam.

Dogecoin Core incorporates some defaults into the software to reflect the developers’ recommendations for fees and dust limits. These defaults, as of the time of release, represent the developers’ best estimate as to the parameters of these limits.

Transactions with outputs below the dust limit are rejected by the wallet, and if the change output drops below 0.01 DOGE, the wallet will discard the change and instead give it to miners as a fee. Once sufficient numbers of miners and relay nodes have embraced the recently added relay dust limits, the recommended dust limit is anticipated to be reduced in a subsequent release.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Former Indiana women’s basketball guard Nicole Cardaño-Hillary has signed a professional contract with IDK Euskotren in Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, her home country, the league announced Tuesday.

In her 2021-22 senior season at Indiana, Cardaño-Hillary averaged 11.6 points per game and shot the most three pointers on last year’s team with 129 making 35.7 percent of those shots. 

These BIG3 NFTs might become one of this year’s most entertaining stories. The 3-on-3 basketball league created by Ice Cube and Jeff Kwatinetz offers utility beyond belief for its “NFT Ownership” collection. The Fire tier NFTs holders will get to effectively affect the game and the league via video calls with the team and coaches. They’ll also get the chance to be Team CEO, which is what Snoop, Gary, and the other projects seem to be looking for.

“A BIG3 NFT holder is effectively a part of the team from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep,” claims the league. These Ethereum-based NFTs come with “ownership-like benefits” in “two-tier options comprising 12,000 editions – 1,000 for each of the league’s twelve teams that include 25 Fire priced at $25,000 each and 975 Gold priced at $5,000 each.” From those 25 Fire ones, a Team CEO is selected. So, each of the prominent buyers got all of the available ones for a particular team.

The BIG3 league’s season five starts on June 18th, and it will receive live coverage on CBS and Paramaunt+. Will the owners and their NFT collections receive some of that coverage? And will they bring their own particular audiences to the BIG3 basketball league?

The BIG3 League Announces Its NFT Series

Recently, “Ice Cube guaranteed on a recent Twitter space that the league will be around for 100 years”. Considering the BIG3 is going into its fifth year, what we have here is a low time preference situation. In the blog post announcing the superpowers that the BIG3 Ownership NFT collection contains, they presented the project comparing Web 2.0 to Web3.

“You can read a blog, comment on a blog, or even start your own blog. You can follow your favorite players on Twitter or Instagram. All of that is fine, but none of it allows you to make an actual impact on your favorite players, team, or league. Web 2.0 provides engagement. Web 3.0, which the BIG3 is diving into with this NFT drop, takes you past engagement and into an empowering experience.”

The NFT excels in utility, among many other things it guarantees: attendance to parties after gamedays and invites to practices. Reserved owner suites, backstage access area, player and coach meet-and-greets. Plus, a championship game experience and “even a championship ring if your team wins the whole thing.” Plus, because it’s the law for NFT projects, “a dedicated Discord page for BIG3 owners.”

However, the killer app is ownership.

How Do The BIG3 NFTs Guarantee Ownership

The new Team CEO is chosen among the 25 Fire tier NFT holders. Besides that, every one of those 25 will have “a direct and tangible impact on the league” by:

• “Access to weekly calls with your team to talk strategy leading up to each game”

• “Weekly video calls with referees to discuss rules and how you think their calls impacted the last game”

• “The unique opportunity to connect with commissioner Clyde Drexler as well as league founders Jeff Kwatinetz and Ice Cube three times a year to discuss fundamental strategy, changes, and ideas for the league”

So yeah, owners will get to speak with Clyde the Glide and Ice Cube. 

ETH price chart on Kraken | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com

The New Owners: Snoop Dogg, Gary Vee, And More

This is where it gets interesting. Since we’re talking about an NFT, members of the community came out in full force to support the idea. And to get into the conversation. So far, the celebrity owners that bought the 25 Fire tier NFTs from their respective teams are:

• Snoop Dogg and co-founder of PayPal Ken Howery got the 25 for team Bivouac.
• Gary Vaynerchuk and his VeeFriends NFT collection got the Triplets, who won the 2019 Championship.
• As referenced in our article about them, NFT community DeGods bought Killer 3.
• Bill Lee from MyDoge wallet brought the DogeCoin community by purchasing the 25 Fire-Tier for Aliens using Dogecoin. This was “the largest commercial transaction in history for the cryptocurrency.”
• Krause House, a basketball-focused Decentralized Autonomous Organization, got the Ball Hogs’ 25.

Relevant Quotes From BIG3’s Site

Speaking on the phenomenon, BIG3 co-founder Ice Cube said:

“We are absolutely thrilled to have Snoop, Ken, and their communities on board with the BIG3. Having someone with Ken’s knowledge and experience wanting to be a part of our league demonstrates that we are moving in the right direction. Snoop is an undisputed legend who has jumped headfirst into the Web3 space and clearly understands the importance and the value of what we are trying to create. Together, I know they will take Bivouac to new heights and we can’t wait to get started.”

For his part, GaryVee said:

“I’ve been incredibly impressed with the pop culture relevance of the BIG3 league. Over the last several months I’ve been able to get closer with Cube and the rest of the team and I’m extremely excited about the impact of the Blockchain on professional sports. All of those ingredients create a scenario where I am excited to join this incredible league.”

And BIG3 co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz contributed:

 “We are thrilled to partner up with Bill and have the MyDoge and Dogecoin communities be represented by the Aliens. We have made history with this transaction, and we hope it inspires others in the Doge world to support the team whether by purchasing the Gold-Tiers, by attending games, or by tuning in.”

As you can see, everyone is focusing on communities and the merging of the audiences. This is a win-win situation if we ever saw one. There could very well be enough star power in this deal to take both the BIG3 League and the NFT community to new heights.

Featured Image: BIG3 Ownership NFT promotional image from the site | Charts by TradingView

A professional basketball league co-founded by rapper Ice Cube announced a way for fans and investors to purchase teams. That news led to Dogecoin DOGE/USD and Solana SOL/USD being involved in several large transactions for teams. Here’s the latest.

What Happened: Technology and Dogecoin investor Bill Lee, who is the chairman of MyDoge and co-founder of Craft Ventures, purchased all 25 fire-tier editions of the Aliens, a team in the Big3. The BIG3 is a professional 3-on-3 basketball league co-founded by Ice Cube.

The purchase price was around $600,000 and is the largest commercial Dogecoin cryptocurrency transaction in history, according to Wednesday’s press release. MyDoge is a self-custodial Dogecoin wallet and is incorporating MyDoge and Dogecoin into the fold.

“Having buy-in from Bill, who has done so much in the NFT and crypto world, confirms what we are doing here is a game-changer,” BIG3 co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz said. “We are thrilled to partner up with Bill and have the MyDoge and Dogecoin communities be represented by the Aliens. We have made history with this transaction.”

yo @icecube – if ya dig doge, me and the #DogeArmy will take one as well. @MyDogetip @thebig3 Ð4,615,420.69 https://t.co/khXqbNoIfg

— bill lee (@westcoastbill) May 4, 2022

The move was brought to Benzinga’s attention by Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus.

“Hey @benzinga, dis dude just tipped dis dude like 500 grand in dog money,” Markus tweeted.

Lee highlighted the purchase Wednesday with also taking a shot at some other NFTs.

“While others are buying NFT images of apes and owls, I believe that NFTs with utility are the next frontier. It is a dream to own a basketball team and the Big3 is shifting the NFT game by offering ownership rights such as licensing/IP, team voting/management, and merchandising,” Lee said.

The purchase follows an April announcement by BIG3 that it would offer non-fungible tokens tied to ownership of teams in the league.

DeGods, a NFT project built on the Solana blockchain, announced recently it bought all the Fire level NFTs of the Killer 3s team from the BIG3. Owners of DeGods NFTs will get access to up to 500 of the 975 lower level Gold NFTs in the team.

“This is probably the most fascinating experiment in the entire NFT space right now,” DeGods founder Frank DeGods said. “It’s cool because owning and operating a basketball team is a dream for millions of people. Now we get to make that dream true for our holders.”

Related Link: How To Buy Dogecoin (DOGE) 

Why It’s Important: Along with the transaction, it was announced that the Aliens team will feature MyDoge and Dogecoin “prominently” on team jerseys. The team will also integrate MyDoge allowing players, coaches and teams to be able to receive Dogecoin tips on Twitter Inc TWTR.

“The Doge Army and I look forward to making Dogecoin the people’s currency while helping our team hoist the championship trophy,” Lee said.

Along with Craft Ventures and Dogecoin, Lee is also an early investor in Tesla Inc TSLA, SpaceX, Neuralink, Coinbase Global COIN and OpenSea.

DeGods also announced previously that it would be featured as a patch on Killer 3s jerseys and integrated into television broadcasts.

The BIG3 has a television rights deal with Paramount Global PARAPARAA for the upcoming 2022 season that will begin on June 18. Over 28 hours of BIG3 games will air on CBS and streaming platform Paramount+.

“We are thrilled to work with them (CBS) again as we enter into our fifth season. They understand our vision, see the passion of our fans and players, and have been an instrumental part of the league’s growth,” BIG3 CEO Chris Hannan said.

The 2021 BIG3 season had record viewership for the league, which came after the 2020 season was cancelled due to COVID-19. The league’s championship game hit a record of 1.47 million viewers.

BIG3 is offering team ownership in its 12 teams through NFTs priced at $25,000 or $5,000 each for the Fire (25) and Gold (975) tiers respectively. NFTs include voting rights, gameday experiences and VIP tickets. The Fire NFTs include IP and licensing rights. The league is expected to launch its public sale of NFTs this month.

“This is team ownership in the 21st century,” Ice Cube said. “We want fans to feel even more invested in their favorite squad, more connected to their favorite player, and provide them with the opportunity to grow with us. While other leagues are flirting with fan ownership, none of them have more meat on the bone than BIG3 team owners.”

Dogecoin has now become part of the Big3 basketball league as Bill Lee, founding chairman of MyDoge, a self-custodial Dogecoin wallet, has bought all 25 fire-tier editions of the Aliens, a team in the Big3.

Much wow! Welcome to the BIG3, #DogeArmy.

Full story: https://t.co/BRM0U2HpIV@icecube | @westcoastbill pic.twitter.com/UIhS2RLOX8

— BIG3 (@thebig3) May 4, 2022

Ice Cube, an American rapper, founded the Big3 professional basketball league, and Big3 chose to sell the team’s rights using non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The Big3 league decided to sell 25 fire-tier NFTs, which gives owners control of the Killer 3s’ licensing, intellectual property (IP) and league-approved items.

As a result of the purchase, Big3 will adopt Dogecoin, resulting in the integration of the MyDoge wallet, allowing players, coaches and teams to earn Dogecoin tips on Twitter with only a tweet. Aliens will also prominently display MyDoge/Dogecoin on team jerseys, events and broadcasts.

“The Doge Army and I look forward to making Dogecoin the people’s currency while helping our team hoist the championship trophy. I can’t think of a better NFT experience than that today,” Bill Lee stated in a release.

Dogecoin large transactions rise 49%

Large transaction spikes are frequently associated with increased activity from institutional players, or whales, who are either buying or selling. These transactions exceed $100,000 moved, according to IntoTheBlock, and were up 49% in the last 24 hours for Dogecoin.

Dogecoin presently trades at $0.134 after reaching highs of $0.137 on May 5. At the time of publication, Dogecoin has demonstrated mild growth in the past 24 hours, up 1.94%. The Dogecoin price remains down 3.76% over the past week. Likewise, the profitability of the largest meme cryptocurrency remains at 56%.

Bitso, the leading Mexican cryptocurrency exchange, recently added support for the largest meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin, according to a recent announcement.

Gucci, one of the most famous fashion brands, will start accepting Dogecoin and some other cryptocurrencies at select locations in North America, according to a report published by Vogue Business.