NFL, Carolina Panthers Deny Paying Russell Okung In Bitcoin

Carolina Panthers’ Russell Okung is not getting paid in Bitcoin directly, his team and an NFL spokesperson have confirmed.

The NFL spokesperson told The Verge that Okung is still paid in dollars just like other players, but the offensive lineman, through Bitcoin payments company Zap, converts a portion of his salary into Bitcoin. The Carolina Panthers also clarified that Okung gets paid in dollars and not cryptocurrency.

The statements came after Coindesk and other outlets reported that Okung became the first NFL player to get paid in Bitcoin, suggesting that the $13 million salary he received is immediately 50% Bitcoin and 50% dollars.

Instead, Zap’s Strike product receives a deposit from the Carolina Panthers in dollars. Zap then converts half of this amount into Bitcoin, which is then transferred to Okung’s cold storage wallet.

Despite cheaper Bitcoin transaction fees versus transfer fees in the traditional financial system, BTC transactions could take minutes to hours. That’s costly in the Bitcoin world because of the dominant cryptocurrency’s volatility, as opposed to a three-day cross-border transfer between banks where exchange rates are relatively stable despite the three days that passes before the transfer arrives.

Zap solves this using the Lightning Network, a payment protocol on top of the Bitcoin blockchain that batches small transactions and instantly executes them before the transaction hits the Bitcoin network. This saves fees and time for eventual users.

So technically, Okung is not paid directly in Bitcoin, but before the payment from the Carolina Panthers touches his accounts, half of it is already converted to Bitcoin.

Okung has not disclosed his relationship with Zap other than the implication that he is a customer. In a December 2019 op-ed, the athlete said that Bitcoin is one of the few financial assets that offer sanctuary from a global recession when it arrives.

“I’m playing my role in raising awareness, shamelessly encouraging professional athletes to embrace Bitcoin,” Okung said.

In the report from Coindesk, Zap founder Jack Mallers said there are a number of professional athletes who have begun onboarding to the program of theirs where their paychecks are converted into Bitcoin. He also said that some of these athletes are members of the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Yankees.

Bitcoin closed Tuesday at $27,366, a new all-time high.