Grammy-nominated band OneRepublic will soon be counting Bitcoin instead of counting stars. Through the help of a peer-to-peer Bitcoin payments app, Strike, OneRepublic will become the first major US band to be paid in BTC for a gig.
The band will accept payment in Bitcoin for a live acoustic show that they had at a historic theater, Hadyn Hall, outside Vienna, Austria. As reported in Variety, the live concert took place on November 16.
OneRepublic leveraged Strike, the Lightning Network-based payments app, to accept the BTC transfers for the live show. The show’s tickets sold out minutes after the ticket sale went live just two weeks before the live performance.
OneRepublic Speak on Bitcoin
While speaking to Variety, the OneRepublic band vocalist, Ryan Tedder, shared that accepting Bitcoin payment was the band’s “next logical step.” He shared that the band as a whole is a great believer of Bitcoin. As a result, they are “happy to be a part of what they believe in.”
Tedder also shared that they believe that Bitcoin has a great future in becoming payment for various transactions without question. These transactions include paying for music, performances, services, and purchases. The lead vocalist shared that accepting Bitcoin as payment is a step toward realizing that future.
Ryan Tedder also shared that he plans on still accepting BTC tokens as payment for his upcoming private December concert. In a previous Variety interview, the singer shared that he began investing in back in 2017.
Still, in that previous interview, he shared his excitement upon hearing El Salvador had accepted BTC as its legal tender. He also shared his hopes of more countries following suit.
Additionally, the musician shared that he’s looking forward to a time when people could travel across the world using global money such as BTC. He noted that this would reduce the worries of exchange rates and different national currencies.
The three-time Grammy winner also has his own NFT collection. The non-fungible token, Cartoon Collection Series One was done in collaboration with Bustart, a Swiss Graffiti pop artist. The duo created the collection to celebrate the joy of a child watching cartoons on Saturday morning.
More on the Strike App
Strike is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin payment application that is based on the Lightning Network protocol. The protocol is a layer 2; this means that it is layered on a blockchain-based crypto like Litecoin or Bitcoin. As a result, the protocol enjoys Bitcoin’s security, making its transactions very secure.
Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon developed Lightning Network and punlished its white paper in 2015. The protocol enables the carrying out of transactions in complete confidentiality. Customers can also carry out the transactions in a short amount of time.
Compared to Ethereum’s ETH2 network, BTC’s Lightning Network is a better proof-of-stake system. This Is because users can actually send payments on the Lightning protocol but not on ETH2.