but one reason why some athletes dream of making it
to the NFL is to make coin money cash.
Well one player has taken that term at
literally san Francisco 49 ers defensive lineman Alex,
Barret is gonna be taking 100% of his paycheck and
Bitcoin after teaming up with Bitcoin payroll service provider.
Bit wage.
Well Alex joins me now as does bit wage.
Ceo Jonathan Chester guys, thanks so much for coming on the show,
Alex will start with you
as some players in your league, Aaron Rodgers, Odell Beckham Jr,
they've received a portion of their salary in Bitcoin,
you are going all in. Why is that?
I think the biggest reason for that is just a diverse from a portfolio. I see where
Everything's going with tech, you know,
in crypto since 2017 when Bitcoin hit a high of 20K.
Um I've kind of just wanted to, you know, learn more about that and you know with,
you know partying with bit ways, they help me understand it more from there,
you know, I kind of made the commitment just to go all in, you know, I'm
I'm taking care of my finances off the field um
enough to where, you know,
this is something I can do and I feel like it's the best decision for my future,
interesting Jonathan, I want to bring you in here as well,
you're the ceo of this payroll provider kind of like an HR
service provider that allows these transactions
these payments to happen in Bitcoin,
how does this technically work?
Yeah,
so we've been doing this since 2014 so we really have been in
this uh for as long as you can remember the word Cryptocurrency.
Uh We've done 100 and $50 million imperial transactions
today we have two kinds of products of B.
Two B.
Product where a company can sign in and connect
us into like an ADP Agusto or whatever.
And then we offer a layer
where employees can receive any percentage of their salary in Bitcoin.
We also have a B. Two C.
Product where the employees whether it's an athlete like Alex or you know a janitor,
a software developer, they can sign up get access to a direct deposit account,
they can connect that direct deposit account to
their payroll system or to an invoice and get
paid by a client and then get any percentage
of their salary that they want into Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrency or us dollars Alex.
I gotta ask you obviously you're cool under pressure.
You play in the NFL as a defensive lineman of the Bitcoin is super speculative,
super volatile.
Are you looking at the price every single day?
And how do you handle some of that volatility?
Um yeah I stay away from my phone as much as possible. I don't try to check the price.
You know we saw this dip in in March and I mean we've seen bigger dips and you know to me
it's just becoming comfortable with it and you know I've
done my research enough and I've learned enough about Bitcoin,
you know the 21 million supply you know where it's
kept at and you know I just see the long
term you know benefits and honestly I'm comfortable on that
and I love getting my paycheck every week currently.
Um and seeing that you know I'm buying the dip each time and
I'm confident that we're going to see more gains in the future.
Well certainly we know the price of Bitcoin well
below its recent high of more than $60,000.
Close to $70,000. Actually a token back in november of last year.
So you're right you are getting in um at a discount Jonathan back to you.
Fidelity recently adding the option to invest in Bitcoin
In 401K. S. I believe that's an option at your firm as well. How does that work?
Yeah. So um a key thing to understand. You know the difference between four oh one K.
Law and this sort of Bitcoin payroll service. So 41 K.
Law is governed by a risk of law and
there's a lot of regulation around that there there is
a fiduciary responsibility of the employer to make sure
that they're choosing good responsible investments for their employees.
So a lot of companies will start using us on the payroll side because there
is less regulation involved to offer this salary benefit uh for people to receive a
pushing standing Bitcoin and then when they're
ready and when they're comfortable and then they've
seen that their employees have had a
good understanding and good level of education,
they'll move on to the four oh one K.
Where they can either
invest a portion of their salaries pretax dollars as a traditional four oh one K.
Or after tax dollars through a Roth.
Where when they have a qualified withdrawal at the end of the day
they pay no taxes on any of that withdrawal or any of the game
Alex back to you.
How high do you see the price of Bitcoin going
True to the moon?
I think the next step would be 100K. And then from there um
the possibilities in this, so we'll see.
So at any point would you consider converting back to regular cash,
your regular paycheck?
What would be
the inflection point to make you rethink perhaps this decision?
Um
Honestly I haven't thought that far into it um Right now,
you know I'm onto Bitcoin and you know my focus is on that.
I do have you know other assets and you know currently out of like usd um so you know and
I have that coming in so I'm seeing that too um as far as my salary on the field,
you know it stays in Bitcoin and
you know as far as stand right now
and
Jonathan back to you.
The price of Bitcoin obviously extremely volatile,
You know that we've been talking about that here throughout this segment.
Does that impact your company in any material way?
Price fluctuations in Cryptocurrency,
Yes and no.
So when people opt in to use us,
they're doing you know a method of investment called dollar cost averaging,
where where they're doing small purchases over time and so for them,
when the price is going down, as Alex has said they're buying the debt,
so they actually like it
when the price is going down because they all uh feel like
they're getting a discount and getting still that that long term appreciation.
So our customers are appreciative, they like it.
That being said of course when the market's going up,
more people are learning about Cryptocurrency so we find that the
rate of growth is faster but we don't see as high turn
or or or customers leaving the platform,
like you might see a traditional exchange where people are getting scared
and and uh no longer trading or or or buying that's not,
that's not the kind of people that are that are
using us and the people who are using us,
they're doing small amounts over time so they're not as
exposed to this short term volatility as someone who might do
and try to do their entire salary all at once
into Bitcoin for some Cryptocurrency.
Alright guys, super fascinating stuff,
thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing
the details with me that san Francisco 49 ers defensive lineman, Alex,
Barret and bit wage ceo Jonathan Chester.