[ NEWS ] Vitalik Buterin and Nouriel Roubini Plan Debate About Cryptocurrencies

At the age of 25, Spencer Dinwiddie is one of few players in the NBA who are investing in cryptocurrencies. Like most people, he came across Bitcoin last summer as the crypto bug swept around. On his current contract, Dinwiddie makes around $1 million a year before taxes. This amount means he is not rich by professional athlete standards. Like many other professional athletes, he is likely to make more from endorsement contracts, advertisements and investing. It’s something that explains the bold move to crypto. Dinwiddie Discovers Bitcoin His obsession with Bitcoin started in the summer of 2017. It was a time when the top crypto coin was on the rise. He managed to buy a few coins at the price of $3,000. His timing was impeccable, so good that it bothers him in retrospect. In a recent interview with Bleacher Report he said: “If I woulda gone all-in, boy, I’d be loaded right now.” As the basketball season started in the fall of 2017, Dinwiddie obsessively kept checking how his investment was performing. He adds that before games kicked off, in the locker room, as other players were busy entering “the zone,” he would open the Coinbase app on his phone and watch the ticker do its thing. Even teammates noticed this fascination with cryptocurrencies. Trevor Booker, who has played with Dinwiddie in Brooklyn for the past two seasons says he got tired listening to him talk. “I honestly got tired of hearing him talk about it. He would let me know how it was performing every day.” For Dinwiddie, the movement was tense, dizzying and exciting. Following along demanded a certain amount of dedication. Unfortunately, the player was in the middle of an NBA season. To ensure he didn’t miss out on good trades, he would set up limits on when the asset could be sold. “If I knew I was going to make a trade and it would intersect with practice, I would set a super-strict sell stop.” It appears his fascination with virtual currencies doesn’t stop with trading. He is now offering fans the chance to purchase his shoe using crypto. This season will see Dinwiddie debut his signature shoe, K8IROS. The sneaker has been developed with the help of a company called Project Dream. It’s expected to hit retail in Nets shops later this season, and he says fans will have the option to purchase it using Bitcoin.