That Time a Startup Pitch's Grand Prize Was Bitcoin, 2 Years Ago

The SLUSH TOKYO 2018 promo video just launched.

It got me thinking about the early days of SLUSH ASIA two years ago — feeling nostalgic, hoping everyone is hanging in there — and then I remembered: the grand prize for the SLUSH ASIA 2015 Startup Pitch Battle was Bitcoin. Do you all remember? Thanks to Recruit and bitFlyer, the winning startup VMFive received $50,000 worth of Bitcoin.

You’re probably wondering how much. At the rate back then, 1 Bitcoin was under 30,000 yen, so they got about 200 Bitcoin. lol

Yeah, I know — what you really want to know is how much that’s worth now, right? Well, 1 Bitcoin is about to hit roughly 700,000 yen, so… at today’s rate…

About 200 Bitcoin is… about 140 million yen…

A 140-million-yen grand prize for a startup pitch battle. Dreams really do come true.

When did they cash out? Are they still holding? This phenomenon is pretty fun — I’d love to see startup pitch prizes denominated in crypto rather than fiat going forward.

Or, the inverse: have the winning startup do an ICO and have the event side buy their tokens. The more the startup grows, the more the pitch host that catalyzed that growth profits.

What a fun era we live in.