NBA Players Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala to Receive Salary Portion in Bitcoin, Give Donations in Crypto

NBA stars Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala have decided to receive a part of their next salaries in Bitcoin crypto tokens. Both the players are part of NBA's Golden State Warriors team based out of San Francisco. The basketball players have further decided to donate $1 million (roughly Rs. 7.38 crore) in Bitcoins among fans. That essentially means, the players will be giving away 23.70 Bitcoin tokens with each priced around $42,000 (roughly Rs. 31.2 lakh). Thompson updated his 1.6 million followers on Twitter.

In a message to his fans, 31-year-old Thompson said Bitcoin is the future of money.

The NBA player also revealed that he, along with Iguodala, has partnered Jack Dorsey's Cash App to facilitate the conversion of their salaries into Bitcoin and intermediate the donations.

Iguodala has also posted information about his Bitcoin giveaway on his Twitter handle.

This is not the first time however, that NBA players and other athletes have demanded payments in cryptocurrencies.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban's team Dallas Mavericks has also been accepting payments using digital assets via BitPay since 2019.

In May 2019, Russel Okung from the National Football League (NFL) had become one of the first sportspersons to have demanded payment in Bitcoin. His demand was met a year later in 2020.

In 2021, American footballers Aaron Rodgers along with Odell Beckham Jr also decided to take their compensations in Bitcoin tokens.

In December last year, Washington DC-based Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE) partnered with crypto exchange FTX US to allow sports enthusiasts to engage in crypto activities and purchase official non-fungible tokens (NFTs) related to their favourite sports.

In fact, NBA itself has also signed a multi-year deal with American exchange Coinbase for crypto-related projects.