The Houston Texans – a professional American football team – have entered into an exclusive partnership with the Houston-based cryptocurrency company, BitWallet. The partnership will allow the team to begin accepting crypto as payment for single-game NFL suites. Effective immediately, BitWallet will act as an intermediary for crypto payments to the Texans. This allows digital assets to immediately be converted into U.S. dollars. The first to purchase a suite using digital currency was EWR Digital, a digital marketing agency. "We…
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Two Golden State Warrior Players To Receive A Bitcoin Salary
Paying no mind to the crypto market’s bearish slump, the sports world is doubling down on its faith in digital, sound money.
Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala – players for the Golden State Warriors – are the latest athletes to accept a Bitcoin salary. Coincidentally, the NFL’s Saquon Barkley released a Twitter thread the following day explaining what Bitcoin means to athletes like themselves.
The Future of Money
Iguodala announced his new Bitcoin salary on Sunday, as part of a collaboration with CashApp. “I’m excited to announce I’m taking part of my salary in Bitcoin,” he said, calling it “the future of money”.
Thompson released a near-identical statement minutes later. He included a video of both players shooting hoops, and promising to convert their paychecks into Bitcoin using the app. In addition, they agreed to each giveaway $1 million in Bitcoin to their followers, through their cashtags.
The giveaway structure mimics that used by Odell Beckham Jr, who chose to receive his entire salary in Bitcoin last October. He also partnered with CashApp for payment intermediation and facilitation of the giveaway.
CashApp is developed by Block, which is owned by Jack Dorsey – a vocal Bitcoin maximalist. Like the two Warriors players, Dorsey also envisions Bitcoin as the future of money. He’s now entirely devoted to making it the “native currency of the internet” and even suspects it will replace the dollar.
Other Golden State Warriors players have immersed themselves with crypto in non-payment-related ways. Steph Curry was most notable among them, who bought a Bored Ape NFT for $180k in August.
Last month, crypto exchange FTX signed a $10 million brand placement deal with the Warriors. Only a week later, Curry launched his own NFT collection.
Athletes On Bitcoin
With the Bitcoin trend among athletes made clear, Saquon Barkley appeared on Twitter soon after to give it context. In a thread on Monday, the New York Giants quarterback explained that he wants his career earnings to “last generations”. Given that athletes are young and their careers are short, the incentive for wealth preservation is especially strong.
“Anyone reading this has access to Bitcoin,” he said. “This is not true for real estate and other assets.”
Barkley added that he was now using Strike’s “Pay Me in Bitcoin” service, another app for receiving paychecks in BTC. He encouraged his followers to do the same.