Which NBA stars have lost money thanks to Cryptos? Curry, Jordan...
Crypto currency has been in a state of free fall for the last year, although it seems to have begun to stabilize again, and some of the NBA’s biggest names were caught in the churn
With cryptocurrencies taking the financial world by storm over the last few years, many NBA players were looking for a long-term investment and tried it out. Some dipped their toes in the water while others dove in head first.
Like all investments, crypto carries a risk and you can lose your investment just as you might earn from it. With the novelty and instability of crypto, it was perhaps more exposed than traditional products. While the potential profits were huge, the losses turned out to be just as daunting.
Here are some of the NBA players who were caught up in the maelstrom of the crypto crash.
Stephen Curry
As arguably the best three-point shooter in NBA history, Steph Curry was the perfect name for FTX to leverage. As brand ambassador, paid in equity for the company, he joined the ranks of Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal, and Naomi Osaka. But when FTX filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, Curry saw millions of dollars disappear from his portfolio. He will recover and take this as a cautionary lesson, but saw himself and other celebrities named in lawsuits brought by disgruntled clients.
Klay Thompson
Agreeing to take a portion of his NBA salary in Bitcoin, Klay Thompson also saw millions wiped off his personal wealth with the collapse of FTX. His $37 million salary saw around $20 million of that simply evaporate. Again, Thompson will bounce back from this setback, but will likely want all future payments in something a little more tangible.
Andre Iguodala
Iggy is a player who is normally pretty investment savvy, having successfully backed companies such as Zoom and Jumia, but his dabble in Bitcoin saw him come up $1.3 million short from his NBA salary. It just goes to show that even the cleverest investor can get caught up in a bad deal.
Cade Cunningham
The number one pick in the 2021 NBA draft agreed to take his signing bonus as Bitcoin. His first NBA partnership deal was with cryptocurrency firm BlockFi, and with their bankruptcy in November of 2022, Cunningham should still have the Bitcoin that he was paid, but will have seen its value fall by around a third. As a young player, he will certainly dust himself off from this lesson, but it is a difficult one to have to learn straight out of the blocks.
Michael Jordan
Even the greatest names in the game are not exempt, as was proved when the most successful NBA player of all time, Michael Jordan, was caught up in the crypto swirl. As the first billionaire in NBA history, he released a non-fungible token collection called 6 Rings, only to see its value plummet with the collapse of FTX. Losing over 90% of his investment meant saying goodbye to around $10 million, although his other investments and income streams are somewhat more reliable.