New York Bitcoin ATM
Bitcoin Direct CEO Peter Klamka (left) speaks as former boxing champion Mike Tyson looks on at the launch of the world's first Mike Tyson Bitcoin ATM machine on Sept. 24. Getty Images
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 unusually 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.”
