Nearly a couple of months ago, Bitcoinist reported that there had been a rapid surge of interest from NFL players, asking teams to ‘Pay Me in Bitcoin.’ Led by Russell Okung, a player for the Los Angeles Chargers and also football’s biggest Bitcoin advocate has been constantly pushing for the league to pay those multi-million-dollar salaries in Bitcoin.
Although this interesting proposal never actually came to any definite conclusion, it did, however, spark the imagination. So much so, that recently a report was pulled out by cryptocurrency firm—Messari—that compares annual take-home salaries of the biggest stars of sports in Bitcoin.
The Messari report highlights that the captain of the Argentine football team and FC Barcelona, Lionel Messi, could be one of the great accumulators of Bitcoin if he chooses to receive his salary and income in terms of cryptocurrency.
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Forbes had reported that the world’s best as well as highest-paid footballer earned $ 111M last year. Therefore, based on the BTC price at the time of the survey, Messi’s gross income would be “$ 12,700 BTC” annually. Not far behind in the list, Juventus player, Ronaldo, is a second. His $109M yearly income currently equates to 10,274.5 BTC. He, though, has never been much of a Bitcoin fan. The third on the list is Brazilian and Paris Saint Germain-footballer, Neymar with an income of $ 105M or 9,034.09 Bitcoins per year.
The first player (from sports other than football) on the list is Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez, a Mexican boxing professional and the world champion in his weight class. His gross annual income of $ 94M would translate into a total of 8,087.66 Bitcoins a year. The list also includes other professional athletes such as LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant of the NBA, alongside Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers of the NFL.
Strikingly though, top earner Lionel Messi’s salary is just as much as what Bitcoin miners make in a week from block rewards, the Messari report also suggests.
Celebrities from domains other than sports are currently under-represented in the list. However, names from the entertainment world have gradually started making their way. As estimates suggest, Kim Kardashian’s approximate $72M yearly income would equate to 6790 BTC, which would technically land her inside the top ten. And then we would have Pirates of the Caribbean-star, Johnny Depp with 3,100 BTC and rapper 50 Cent with 2,830 BTC.
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The idea of accepting Bitcoin as salary might not be way too far-fetched as almost every sport has become involved in cryptocurrency, either accepting them for ticket payments or sale of collectibles. Whether they want to make the change sooner or later will depend a lot on the Okung Cryptocurrency BTC seminar to be held during early September.
