Okay.Let’s say that you had a chance to convert your yearly salary to be paid in a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin instead of your traditional direct deposits. I don’t care if you work at McDowell’s (aka the home of the Big Mick), drive a Pizza Planet truck, or work for a Fortune 500 company that makes fortune cookies (I hope I have some Rick and Morty fans out there or that reference will be stale…..like the fortune cookies). Would you do it?
If you said yes, you are a bolddddd person because that’s a giant risk. However, I definitely understand your position. Since the world is saying that cryptocurrency is the next big wave, the value is expected to go up. The more money that you put into a cryptocurrency, the more money you make as the coin increases in value. But let’s be a bit pessimistic for the sake of a blog post, and take a second to think about the opposite of that. What about if (or when) the value of a coin decreases? Mannnn you can lose a lot of money like myself and these athletes that had their contracts converted to being paid in crypto.
(Just so that we are clear…I don’t know these people and I definitely have no clue what they have going on financially. I am not assuming that these athletes haven’t pulled their money out before the crypto crash. Rather, I am just showing what their contracts would look like now if the players haven’t pulled out their funds. I’m not pocket watching, just trying to show how volatile the market could be. I am going to use $19,430 as today’s Bitcoin price since that is the price I see on my Coinbase app. Also, shoutout to Yahoo Finance for supplying me with the Bitcoin values on these specific days!)
Players Paid in Bitcoin
(These players all have either a portion or all of their deals be paid in Bitcoin)
Cade Cunningham (NBA)
Date Signed: Aug. 19, 2021
Bitcoin Price (at time of deal): $46,717.58
% Change in Bitcoin Price: -58.41%
Aaron Rodgers (NFL)
Date Signed: Nov. 1, 2021
Bitcoin Price (at time of deal): $61,004.41
% Change in Bitcoin Price: -68.15%
Shohei Ohtani (MLB)
Date Signed: Nov. 16, 2021
Bitcoin Price (at time of deal): $60,161.25
% Change in Bitcoin Price: -67.70%
Odell Beckham Jr. (NFL)
Date Signed: Nov. 22, 2021
Bitcoin Price (at time of deal): $56,289.29
% Change in Bitcoin Price: -65.48%
Trevor Lawrence (NFL)
Date Signed: Nov. 22, 2021
Bitcoin Price (at time of deal): $56,289.29
% Change in Bitcoin Price: -65.48%
Klay Thompson (NBA)
Date Signed: Jan. 10, 2022
Bitcoin Price (at time of deal): $41,821.26
% Change in Bitcoin Price: -53.54%
Andre Iguodala (NBA)
Date Signed: Jan. 10, 2022
Bitcoin Price (at time of deal): $41,821.26
% Change in Bitcoin Price: -53.54%
All of these deals were signed less than 14 months ago. Every single one of these deals has at least halved in value. Imagine you said that you’re going to put your earnings in a savings account for a year. After that year, you would have however much you put in plus whatever interest accrued. Now, on the flip side, imagine after just a year, the amount that you have left is less than half of what you started with. Personally, I’d be devastated! I couldn’t convert my paycheck to Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency unless the crypto market became much more consistent and less volatile. So yes right now at this current moment, I’d rather take a dollar in rusty pennies than take a $1 worth of Bitcoin.
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