• Largest cryptocurrency exchange platform in the United States to sponsor esports tournament organiser’s Spring Season

• BLAST Premier and Coinbase to help bring esports and gaming closer to world of cryptocurrency as part of deal

Esports tournament organiser BLAST Premier has announced a sponsorship with leading cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase to sponsor their Counter-Strike Spring Season.

BLAST Premier and Coinbase will be looking to use the sponsorship to help bring the world of esports and gaming closer to cryptocurrency through integrated digital activations and player-led content.

As part of the deal, Coinbase branding will feature prominently across the Spring Showdown (13-18 April) and Final (15-20 June), including branded content opportunities and fan-led activations.

Founded in 2012, Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency platform in the United States by trading volume and aims to build a cryptoeconomy that offers users a more fair, accessible, efficient and transparent financial system. Coinbase has over 43 million verified users in more than 100 countries and allows customers to securely invest, spend and earn cryptocurrency.

The cryptocurrency exchange platform will sponsor BLAST Premier’s ‘The Economy Play’ broadcast segment, which sees analysts dissect and discuss economy rounds in between key matches. The broadcast segment will be a deep dive into how teams decide to spend their money in-game, and provide insight on how teams perform in this area of CS during a match. The Coinbase logo will also feature on the caster backdrop, in-game animated branding and sponsor bars.

Last season, BLAST Premier was broadcast in over 105 territories around the world and enjoyed more than 83 million hours of content watched across all seven of its tournaments, Coinbase will look to benefit from this platform to reach a global and highly engaged audience.

Oliver Clarke, Head of Brand Partnerships for BLAST, said: “Esports and cryptocurrency both share a strong relationship with technology and innovation. BLAST Premier is enjoyed on a global scale with an audience that is known to be tech savvy. We look forward to seeing the result of fans engaging with the safe, secure and world-leading cryptocurrency exchange platform.”

BLAST Premier is a leading Counter-Strike tournament series that unites all major events, offers opportunities to regions across the globe and crowns the world champions of CS:GO. Up to 32 teams will take part in the seven BLAST Premier events this year with a combined prize pool of $2,475,000 on the line.

American expansion allows digital wallet customers in majority of states to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through Coinbase-powered solution

Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, today announced that its Skrill digital wallet has expanded its cryptocurrency offering to the U.S. in partnership with Coinbase, the digital currency platform provider. The deal sees Coinbase provide a new cryptocurrency white label solution to Skrill, continuing the digital wallet’s U.S. expansion by enabling customers across 37 states and territories to easily buy and sell multiple cryptocurrencies.

Skrill’s crypto offering, which was first launched in 2018 and is already available in over 30 countries, can now be used by consumers in Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Washington state, and Puerto Rico, among 27 other states¹. Through an integration with the Coinbase platform – an existing Skrill liquidity exchange partner in Europe – Skrill customers in these states can use the digital wallet² to instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

Aside from the U.S. dollar, Skrill users also have the option of using Bitcoin to buy other cryptocurrencies, enabling quicker and more convenient transactions by allowing customers to avoid having to convert their interests back into fiat currencies. This will result in fewer overall transactions and therefore lower related fees.

This, the first phase of Skrill’s U.S. crypto expansion – with other states expected to be added imminently – further strengthens the digital wallet’s capabilities for American consumers. 2020 Skrill milestones in the U.S. included unveiling the Skrill Visa® Prepaid Card and launching both its Skrill Money Transfer remittance solution and Skrill Knect loyalty and rewards program.

Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Skrill, NETELLER, and Income Access at Paysafe, said: “U.S. consumer interest in cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency trading is stronger than ever, so we’re delighted to better serve our customers’ needs by launching our Skrill crypto offering in the country in partnership with Coinbase. Powered by Coinbase’s sophisticated platform, our crypto offering is just Skrill’s latest U.S. move to provide consumers with a best-in-class digital wallet.”

Brett Tejpaul, Head of Institutional Trading at Coinbase, commented: “As we focus on building the crypto-economy, we look to partner with leaders like Skrill who can white-label our turnkey solution to provide and support digital assets to their clients without having to learn the nuances of building a crypto exchange.”