What happened to Digitalbits, the former sponsor of Roma and Inter?

January 2022. Attorney Adam Ford of Ford O’Brien Law Firm gives an interview to The New York Times. He is an early investor in Digitalbits and has just sued the company. “There is nothing behind their company. In addition to sponsorships around the world, they have nothing”. The accusation is serious. The crypto world of Digitalbits would be nothing more than a ‘scam’. A scam. A fraud.

It does not appear that Digitalbits has ever officially responded to the accusation. And nothing else is known about the cause at the moment. But it is the first crunch in the image of a company that in the previous months had presented itself to the general Italian public with an entrance with a great scenic effect. Two contracts with two of the most important football teams in Serie A: As Roma and Inter. Contracts not honored, so much so as to force the two companies to remove the sponsor from the shirt.

The arrival of Digitalbits in Italy: the contracts with Roma and Inter

The Digitalbits brand appears for the first time on the big Italian screens on July 8, 2021. José Mourinho is presented as the new coach of As Roma. The coach, announced three months earlier, speaks to reporters with Digitalbits branding prominently embossed in white on a purple-red panel. In two weeks’ time he will become the team’s main sponsor with a 3-year contract to appear on the purple shirt of Lorenzo Pellegrini and his companions: 5 million the first; 10 million the second; 25 million the third.

Shortly after, the club will sign a new contract, but with Inter. Slightly different modalities, because first he will be sponsor of sleeve (year 2021, 5 million, paid), then from 2022 main sponsor with a richer contract: 85 million in total for two years. Of this money, however, it seems that Inter has not received anything.

But in the current football season the two clubs, which in the meantime reached the final of the Europa League (Roma) and Champions League (Inter) respectively, would not have received what was agreed. Digitalbits has been missing from the Roma and Inter shirts for two weeks. Yesterday Mourinho’s team showed up with a badge on their white uniform to cover the company name with a more romantic Spqr: Senate and people of Rome.

What Digitalbits (and parent company Zytara) does

Digitalbits is a company active in the world of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. It has come to sponsor two of the most important clubs in Italian football following a huge cash influx that arrived between 2020 and 2021, in full explosion of the crypto world. Precisely in the months in which it was making agreements with Rome and Milan, Bitcoin reached its all-time highs, reaching a value of 60,000 dollars each (today the value is reduced to about a third).

Digitalbits is a trademark. Behind that brand is another company. Her name is Zytara. It is based in the Caymans. The founder is Al Burgio, born in a farming village in Ontario, a degree in accounting and finance, various and not always successful entrepreneurial experiences in the digital economy.

Digitalbits crypto flies in 2021, then the collapse (with that of cryptocurrencies)

Before the Roma and Inter contract, the value of Digitalbits tokens was rather static. It fluctuated between $0.02 and $0.07. The first, powerful one, in the summer of 2021. Then in the following autumn, when it touched $0.8. Digitalbits digital currency was bought. Its capitalization, according to what we read on Coinmarketcap, reached around 400 million dollars. Today the price has collapsed. The coin is trading at $0.0013. With a capitalization slipped to around one million.

Digitalbits, as well as the entire crypto market, has collapsed. Its value, its turnover as well. The crypto winter has thus also touched Italian football. If you go to the Digitalbits page dedicated to Roma and Inter today, there is nothing inside. Zytara hasn’t updated the site since September 2022. Just as the social channels are not updated. Zytara, the company behind Digitalbits, does not give signs of life and at the moment no response has been received to the emails sent to the company address.

Contracts not honored with Inter. Then the exit from the scene with Rome

It was Inter who paid the bill first. Zytara and Digitalbits had pledged $85 million over 4 seasons to become sponsors of the company. But the company only paid the first part of the amount due. The money continued to arrive at Roma until the end of 2022. Al Burgio would also show up in September, at the Olimpico, when Roma made their home debut with Dybala.

But in the meantime Dan Friedkin, patron of Roma, has been looking for new sponsors, making the debut of Toyota, distributed by the Friedkins in the USA, as a sponsor for the training shirts. The suspicion, even then, is that Digitabits could collapse. Or disappear. On 31 March 2023, the payments scheduled for the current year did not arrive in the coffers of Trigoria.

Digitalbits instead made the references to Roma and Inter disappear. disappearing.