Retired former heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson is expanding his presence in the Bitcoin space with an announcement Monday that he is now lending his name to Bitcoin wallets.

The offering, run by Bitcoin Direct, LLC, a subsidiary of Connexus Corp., is said to bring consumers the first celebrity-endorsed mainstream digital wallet that allows the buying and selling of Bitcoin.

Allegedly giving endorsement to the Mike Tyson Digital Wallet is BitPay, Inc., which is claimed to be a partner in the wallet, with the wallet using BitPay’s Copay open source code to power it, as well as use of Glidera integration to allow the purchase and selling of Bitcoins from the app itself.

Bitcoin Direct says it does not charge users any fees for using the wallet; however, the wallet’s settings allow users to select from a sliding range of options for the minimal fees required to quickly confirm a payment on the Bitcoin network.

“Bitcoin Direct is pleased to partner with Mike Tyson because Tyson is a universally known star whose fan base extends generations. People around the world of all ages know Mike Tyson, and as such Tyson’s potential to expand the Bitcoin market is dramatic,” Bitcoin Direct Chief Executive Officer Peter Klamka said in a statement. “The Mike Tyson Digital Wallet offers beginners a simple and secure way to get started with Bitcoin. Users can create wallets for sharing funds with friends, store multiple personal wallets in the same app, accept payments from friends, or pay bitcoin-accepting businesses online or in person.”

Dubious

When news of Mike Tyson Bitcoin ATMs first emerged back in July 2015 , we said that it was all a potential scam, and nothing much has changed since then, except that Tyson himself keeps getting sucked in for more.

Something still just isn’t right, particularly given the way the company pitches itself.

Bitcoin Direct likes to mention that it’s a subsidiary of “Connexus Corp. (OTC PINK: CNXS)” complete with the stock code making it sound all very good; after all, a subsidiary of a publicly traded company sounds grand; however, it’s nothing more than a ploy to make it seem that way, as Connexus is currently trading at $0.0015, up a remarkable 100 percent in one day (someone amazingly bought stock in it) with a market cap of $93,450. No … no zeroes were left off that figure, a company worth less than $100,000 has apparently signed up Mike Tyson for yet another Bitcoin-related product.

Furthermore, the company says that it is in partnership with BitPay, and yet despite the natural interest in Mike Tyson and the new product BitPay has said nothing at all about the deal; put simply, you’d expect BitPay to be on board with publicity if it truly was a partner here.

We’ve contacted BitPay to ask them exactly what the relationship really is, and we’ll update this post if we get a reply.

The Mike Tyson Digital Wallet is currently available on iOS with an Android version said to be coming soon.

Image credit: 65456139@N07/Flickr/CC by 2.0