Kansas City Chiefs player Sean Culkin will take the entirety of his 2021 base salary – $920,000 in Bitcoin which at the time of writing is trading at $53.5k with a market cap of almost $1 trillion. Culkin will be the first national league player to be paid entirely in Bitcoin. If even some of the most conservative estimates of Bitcoin prove to be true this could end up resulting in one of the smartest investments of all time. As for now at least he hasn’t revealed if he has an exit strategy or not.
You might be able to recall that Russell Okung did carry through on his intent that he wanted to be paid in Bitcoin but he still receives half of his $13 million salary in Bitcoin. Considering the amount of money Okung is receiving this arguably represents as much as a commitment to crypto as Culkin is displaying.
Culkin will start stacking biweekly sats via Zap’s Strike, this is indeed that same fiat-to-bitcoin salary conversion service Okung uses. The Chiefs have confirmed that they have been made aware of Culkin’s arrangement but his reserve contract is still denominated in dollars, he said. “This is generational for me,” Culkin told CoinDesk.
Culkin has admitted that accepting 100% of his salary in Bitcoin is not the most risk-averse or sensible financial decision one can make but maintains the argument that his conviction to Bitcoin means that this represents a great financial investment in the long run. He also stated that he is not phased by the volatility that comes with investing in crypto.
“I don’t want to have to feel pressured to be like, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna buy this week,’” Culkin said. The system will allow him to remain “detached” from market movements so he can focus on football.
