American comedian and producer Louis Székely, professionally known as Louis C.K has started to accept bitcoin payments for his comedy show performed at Madison Square Garden.
The audio-only show can be purchased with bitcoin through BitPay, and customers can choose the price for this audio album. Louis CK mentioned on his website:
“We have the price set to 5 dollars but you can lower it to 1 dollar or raise it to 85. that's the maximum, because beyond that, I don't want your crazy money.”
Louis C.K is the first comedian ever to accept bitcoin for comedy albums and shows. C.K integrated BitPay on his website louisck.net, to enable his fans and customers to purchase any of his shows, albums and recordings with bitcoin.
Apart from other possible reasons, it is most likely that Louis C.K began accepting bitcoin payments for his cheap albums and audio-only shows on his site, including the LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN comedy show.
As mentioned above, users can purchase audio files for as little as US$1, and using financial/mobile payment platforms like PayPal can be incredibly inefficient and expensive. PayPal charges around 7~10% in transaction fees, and can freeze user accounts sporadically.
After the announcement, a number of fans began to purchase his albums with bitcoin.
One fan stated:
“I was actually just looking for some standup comedy on Youtube, then noticed this post. Best $10 ever spent.”