Sean Culkin, a tight end for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, has joined the wave of athletes demanding to be paid in bitcoin.
“I fully believe Bitcoin is the future of finance and I wanted to prove that I have real skin in the game — not just trying to make a quick buck. I will be converting my entire NFL salary to #Bitcoin,” the athlete tweeted earlier today.
Culkin’s base salary for 2021 is a reported $920,000, according to KMBC.
In converting his salary to bitcoin, Culkin is joining NFL colleague Russel Okung, a Carolina Panthers offensive tackle who in December 2020 partnered with Lightning Network platform Strike to receive a sizable part of his $13 million yearly salary in bitcoin.
Okung was the first player in the league to publicly convert part of his salary to bitcoin and has enjoyed great profits since then. The price of bitcoin on December 29, 2020 was around $27,318.00, and it is now sitting at $53,770 at the time of writing.
Although price appreciation might have been influencing Bitcoin’s rising adoption in sports, the Chiefs’ tight end doesn’t seem to be looking to make quick profits per his tweet.