The online cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin has won a lot of fans for its lack of a centralized authority and high degree of anonymity. Some have worried that Bitcoin is used extensively to fund illegal activities in the seedier parts of the internet, but there’s nothing seedy about a nice, friendly game of pool, right? A company called Liberty Games aims to let you pay for your next game with Bitcoin and a smartphone.
Using Bitcoin online is sometimes a complicated endeavor, but Liberty Games wanted to make it painless to buy a round of pool. The table has a Raspberry Pi built-in to handle the transaction on the user’s end. It then communicates to a server that manages the actual transaction on the Bitcoin network.
The table’s Bitcoin address is embedded in a QR code next to the digital readout, which tells the player how many Bitcoins a game costs. The value of Bitcoin bounces around a lot, so the exact number of coins (technically fractions of a coin) will change over time. The player can use any number of Bitcoin wallet apps to scan the QR code and send the required coins to the address. Once the table gets the signal that everything has gone through, it releases the balls just as if someone slipped a bill into the slot.
The Bitcoin-operated pool table is admittedly a bit of a niche item right now, but Liberty Games (based in the UK) will actually be selling the table in the near future. It will probably cost a whole mess of Bitcoins.
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