Iron Mike’s ATMs
Ex-boxer lends brand to bitcoin biz
Iron Mike Tyson has moved from bit ears to bitcoin.
As strange as it might sound, the chief executive of a bitcoin exchange company has licensed the former heavyweight champ’s name for a line of 100 branded bitcoin ATMs — the first of which was unveiled in Las Vegas on Thursday.
The ATMs are a 50/50 partnership between Tyson and Bitcoin Direct, Peter Klamka, the CEO of the company, told The Post.
Klamka signed his deal with Tyson after pondering what “celebrity cuts across all generations, all borders, all cultures and all ethnic groups,” he said.
“People from Brooklyn to Beijing know the guy,” Klamka explained.
The meeting went unusu ally well because Tyson — unbeknownst to his future partner — already had an interest in digital currencies, he said.
“All I had to do was talk him through the mechanics of how an ATM works,” Klamka said. “From there it was contract to installation in eight weeks.”
Tyson’s ATM — at the Caesarsowned LINQ Hotel & Casino — isn’t the first in Las Vegas. Two downtown casinos started accepting the currency in January 2014 — and had a bitcoin ATM installed in May 2014.
But the Mike Tyson bitcoin ATM is Sin City’s first celebritybranded version.
Yet those whouse it to turn cash into bitcoin do so at their own risk. Bitcoin traded at $235.35 Thursday, after bouncing between $1,217 and $198 in recent years.