Oleksandr Usyk-backed Ready to Fight teams up with TON Foundation to offer crypto debit cards

Co-founded by Ukrainian world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, Ready to Fight has joined forces with the TON Foundation to bring crypto-friendly debit cards to Telegram.

Ready to Fight, a web3 boxing app built on the Ethereum and BNB Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain) blockchains, has teamed up with the TON Foundation and Kauri One, a blockchain developer, to offer a crypto-enabled debit card on the Telegram messenger in an effort to expand use cases for the RTF token.

According to a press release shared with crypto.news, the collaboration allows RTF holders to spend their tokens globally at merchants that support Mastercard using Apple Pay. Additionally, users can buy, hold, exchange, and sell nine other tokens, including Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), and Ethereum (ETH), within their in-app wallet, and convert them into RTF tokens.

Commenting on the partnership, Ready to Fight chief executive Sergey Lapin said blockchain opened “huge opportunities to support the growth of the sports industry, and this is particularly the case for boxing.”

“The huge demand for Ready to Fight demonstrates its potential, but we can only achieve mass adoption by ensuring ease-of-use and a wide range of use-cases,” Lapin said.

Launched in late 2023, Ready to Fight already boasts over 150,000 users, including 15,000 boxers, and has received support from boxing champions like Amir Khan, Mike Tyson, and Michael Buffer. The app is designed as an “intermediary” between athletes and the specialists and services that “help them develop and earn money,” according to the project’s tokenomics. The platform also uses its own native token RTF for “all financial transactions on the platform,” including donations, and payment for products and services.