Yes you read the title right, this is the story of how Potcoin sponsored a diplomatic trip for former basketball player Dennis Rodman to North Korea!
A little backstory first.
Dennis Rodman, a flamboyant and eccentric, retired five time former NBA champion, was first introduced to North Korea through Vice Media in 2013.
Vice after a previous successful documentary on North Korea wanted to go back to the country, but wanted to do things different this time.
In the past they had only been shown the propaganda, and this time they proposed a basketball game between the Harlem Globetrotters and a North Korean Team.
Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea, is a huge fan of American basketball, and his favourite team was the Chicago Bulls. Dennis is a former member of the Bulls and was therefore asked to lead the American team, hoping that doing this would persuade the North Koreans to agree to the match.
The idea was that this way everyone could have a chance to bond throughout the event, and Vice could show the country in a non-political way. The event was later termed basketball diplomacy.
The trip was a success, as you can see in the original video from Vice here! It's a great documentary and I recommend it to anyone who is interested!
Afterwards Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman actually developed a friendship and Dennis called the leader his "friend for life" and a "great guy".
Dennis's second major trip to the country came in 2015, and was turned into a documentary as well called: Dennis Rodman's Big Bang in Pyongyang, another film I highly recommend! It's another crazy unbelievable story where you'll see Dennis singing Happy Birthday to Kim Jong Un, among many other things!
At this point you're probably wondering where Potcoin comes in.
The second trip to the North attracted a lot of controversy, as it always does. Many people thought that Dennis was naive and a little gulligble, and the North Koreans were using him for propaganda.
At first Dennis was sponsored by PaddyPower an Irish gambling company, and after they withdrew, potcoin stepped in!
At the time, the price of Potcoin surged when Dennis announced the news on Twitter in a Potcoin t-shirt and baseball cap!
Launched in 2014, Potcoin is a cryptocurrency created to facilitate transactions within the legal cannabis industry. It wants to give marijuana dispensaries and farmers an alternative to banks.
Shawn Perez, a potcoin spokesman, said that the trip would be a “peace mission,” but most people suspected that it was nothing more than a publicity stunt.
And this brings us to to the end of our story, to the moment where Potcoin once again sponsors Dennis in 2018, as he travels to the summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore. Dennis offered his support to his "friends Trump and Kim", but wasn't acutally invited.
At least we got this amazing interview out of it!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this crazy story!