All eyes are on Russell Okung. Not because the famous American football player shone on the lawns, but for his financial choices. The member of the Carolina Panthers, a club that plays in the NFL, has indeed decided to receive half of his salary of 13 million dollars (almost 11 million euros) in bitcoins, as recounted by our colleagues at CNews, Tuesday 29 December 2020. Russell Okung will therefore receive 295.45 bitcoins, or $ 7,947,250.46. An amount paid via Zap, a firm specializing in converting bitcoins into dollars.
The 32-year-old athlete had already expressed his wish in May 2019 to receive part of his emoluments in cryptocurrency. “Pay me in bitcoins”, he launched on May 14 on the social network Twitter. Bitcoin surged over Christmas weekend to reach its all-time high on December 27, at $ 28,365.06. However, it has declined sharply since. On Tuesday, December 29, a bitcoin cost $ 26,863.77, according to data compiled by the Bloomberg agency. But if its value is volatile, some experts believe that the virtual currency could be worth several hundred thousand euros in the coming years, says CNews. Hence the footballer’s appetite.
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Snowball effect ?
And Russell Okung could well start a new fashion among athletes. Zap claims that a Brooklyn Nets basketball player and a New York Yankees baseball player would also like to convert their salaries, or at least part of it, into bitcoins.
