NFL player to receive salary in Bitcoin

Russell Okung to be the first NFL player in history to receive a bitcoin salary

NFL player Russell Okun will receive half of his US$13 million contract in Bitcoin. According to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network, the 32-year-old is the first player in the U.S. professional football league to be paid with digital currency.

According to Coindesk, the payment will be made through the Strike platform, a startup founded by Jack Mallers that allows wages to be paid in Bitcoin. Mallers said that authorisation from the NFL was needed to confirm the deal, he also said that other professional NBA (basketball) and MLB (baseball) players would also start participating in the programme.

The NFL player is a former Bitcoin supporter, talking about the digital asset several times on his Twitter and in his professional life.

„The next decade will be about the mass adoption of Bitcoin,“ he said.

When asked why he doesn’t get 100% of his salary at Bitcoin, he joked, „My wife hasn’t fully signed up yet. He said the goal is to get the bitcoins and keep them instead of spending them.

The Bitcoins will be sent to a private wallet and will not stay on any platform or brokerage house.

The player asks to be paid with the digital currency since 2019, however, the team had not met his wish until then.

According to CryptoPotato, if he had been paid half his salary in Bitcoin since 2019, when digital currency was traded in the $7,000 range, today he would have the $29.86 million bagatelle in Bitcoin alone.

Russell signed a four-year, $53 million contract with the Los Angeles Chargers in 2017. The decision to receive part of his salary in Bitcoin has caused great excitement in the NFL community.

The National Football League (NFL) is the premier professional football league in the United States. Based on the audience, the NFL has become the most popular professional sports league in the United States. Its championship, the Super Bowl, is usually the most watched television event of the year, some call it the world’s largest sporting event.

That is, Bitcoin continues with its mass adoption and receiving free publicity at one of the largest events in the world. Millions of people now know that Bitcoin is not just any currency, it can be used for payments, services, investments, reserves of value, and of course, salary payments.