By Weston Blasi
‘Who mentioned taking my salary in bitcoin was dumb?’ he asks now
‘Soooo who mentioned taking my Rams salary in bitcoin was dumb once more?’
That was Miami Dolphins huge receiver Odell Beckham Jr. on Wednesday reminding people who he took his 2021 salary in bitcoin (BTCUSD).
The Tremendous Bowl champion transformed his $750,000 salary into cryptocurrency in a take care of Block Inc.’s (SQ) Money App. Beckham, who performed for the Los Angeles Rams on the time and now performs for the Miami Dolphins, made the transfer at a time when many athletes first began publicly touting crypto and different digital property.
For instance, Tom Brady took cryptocurrency in a take care of now-defunct crypto change FTX, Saquon Barkley mentioned he took the thousands and thousands he earned in endorsements all in bitcoin, and Trevor Lawrence accepted his signing bonus from at the least one endorsement deal in a mixture of bitcoin and Solana (SOLUSD). Different distinguished athletes who’ve taken some type of compensation in crypto or NFT tasks embody Lionel Messi, Mike Tyson, Aaron Rodgers, Cristiano Ronaldo and Shohei Ohtani.
Beckham transformed his salary into bitcoin on Nov. 12, 2021, when the value was $64,158, in line with The Motion Community.
On the time, many publications – together with MarketWatch – detailed how the funding was worth rather a lot much less. At one level, Beckham’s $750,000 transformed salary was worth simply $401,500. Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies skilled an extended “crypto winter” the place costs have been down considerably from their 2021 highs.
It is not recognized if Beckham moved the $750,000 sum all of sudden into bitcoin or unfold it out over a number of conversions, so it’s troublesome to pinpoint the precise greenback determine for Beckham’s 2021 crypto salary. But when he did the previous, it could be worth $1,052,000 as of Nov. 13. Along with the earnings tax he seemingly would have paid on the time, Beckham would additionally must pay capital-gains tax if he have been to promote any of his crypto.
Cryptocurrencies have rallied in 2024, and additional climbed following Donald Trump’s election win. Trump as soon as referred to as crypto “a rip-off,” however has since publicly embraced a wide range of digital property and vowed to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet.”
See: Will bitcoin preserve going up? 3 warning indicators it may begin dropping quickly.
Representatives for Beckham didn’t confirm the phrases of Beckham’s bitcoin funding to MarketWatch.
Costs for bitcoin have been hovering simply above $90,000 on Wednesday, and are up 139% over the previous 12 months. Ether (ETHUSD) costs have been simply above $3,100 on Wednesday, and are up 55% over the previous 12 months
Learn on: MARA’s strikes past bitcoin mining could also be good enterprise, however unhealthy for the inventory
-Weston Blasi
This content material was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is printed independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Road Journal.
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