{"id":34199,"date":"2020-12-30T12:21:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T10:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=34199"},"modified":"2025-08-28T17:34:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T14:34:37","slug":"nfl-star-converts-half-of-salary-to-bitcoin-via-lightning-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/nfl-star-converts-half-of-salary-to-bitcoin-via-lightning-network\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL star converts half of salary to Bitcoin via Lightning Network"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NFL star Russell Okung began automatically converting half of his annual salary, amounting to $13 million, into Bitcoin, using the Strike service from the Zap startup.<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cPay me in Bitcoin,\u201d said the Carolina Panthers&#8217; offensive tackle in May last year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>On Tuesday, December 29, he followed up, saying that he had already received payment in cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\\\"twitter-tweet\\\">\n<p dir=\\\"ltr\\\" lang=\\\"en\\\">Paid in Bitcoin. <a href=\\\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ey6oOcmLjA\\\">https:\/\/t.co\/Ey6oOcmLjA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 russ (@RussellOkung) <a href=\\\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RussellOkung\/status\/1343923267019698177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\\\">December 29, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\\\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\\\" charset=\\\"utf-8\\\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Some media outlets rushed to report that Okung is paid in Bitcoin; that is not entirely accurate.<\/p>\n<p>In a comment to <a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/panthers-russell-okung-becomes-first-nfl-player-to-be-paid-in-bitcoin\\\" target=\\\"_blank\\\" rel=\\\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\\\">CoinDesk<\/a>, Zap founder Jack Mallers said that the player continues to receive his salary in US dollars, but converts 50% of the funds into Bitcoin via the Lightning Network to a cold wallet.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cOther professional athletes, basketball players for the Brooklyn Nets and baseball players for the New York Yankees have also begun to join the program,\u201d Mallers added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Strike enables automated conversion of traditional salaries into Bitcoin, paying Lightning invoices using only bank cards, without wallets or other traditional Lightning Network solutions.<\/p>\n<p>Zap launched the service in January 2020, and in July, in partnership with Visa, began its open beta testing.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mallers, Strike processes \u201cseven-figure sums\u201d each month, and he expects transaction volumes to grow.<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog&#8217;s news on <a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forklog\\\" target=\\\"_blank\\\" rel=\\\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\\\">Facebook<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NFL star Russell Okung began automatically converting half of his $13 million annual salary into Bitcoin, using Zap&#8217;s Strike service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[325,1804,2078],"class_list":["post-34199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-lightning-network","tag-strike","tag-zap"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"18","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34201,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34199\/revisions\/34201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}