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

Thompson and Iguodala have partnered with Jack Dorsey’s Cash App to facilitate their Bitcoin transactions.

By Radhika Parashar | Updated: 11 January 2022 14:37 IST

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

Photo Credit: Twitter/ Andre Iguodala

NBA has been getting associated with the crypto space frequently

Highlights

Both players are part of NBA’s Golden State Warriors team
They will be giving away 23.70 Bitcoin tokens to fans
Each Bitcoin token is priced $42,000 (roughly Rs. 31.2 lakh)

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.

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I'm BACK and changing it up: excited to take part of my paycheck in bitcoin thanks to Cash App! I'm with bitcoin because I believe it's the future of money :new_moon_with_face: Plus I'm giving out $1M in btc with @andre right NOW. Just follow @CashApp + drop your $cashtag below w/ #PaidInBitcoin pic.twitter.com/bUYC6SxkMj
— klay thompson (@KlayThompson) January 10, 2022

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

Drop them $cashtag w/ #PaidInBitcoin follow @CashApp to get this mil in bitcoin!! pic.twitter.com/kuBavqMNL4
— andre (@andre) January 10, 2022

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.

Pay me in Bitcoin.
— Okung :100: (@RussellOkung) May 14, 2019

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.

Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Further reading: NBA, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

Radhika Parashar

Email Radhika

Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More