To welcome in the new year, BeInCrypto is introducing a new weekly crypto news roundup series to highlight the most important breaking stories in the blockchain space.
Russell Okung Becomes First Pro Athlete to Be Paid in Bitcoin
Starting off our roundup, we wanted to highlight the amazing news received by professional football player Russell Okung.
This Super Bowl champion has been a vocal advocate of Bitcoin for years, even tweeting last year that he wants to be paid in Bitcoin.
Well, thanks to a recent partnership with a Lightning Network platform, Okung will start receiving half of his $13 million contract in Bitcoin. This is a huge milestone for Bitcoin, as it marks the first time a professional athlete will be directly paid in Bitcoin for their labor.
Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike, the Lightning Network platform that is facilitating Okung’s payments, has tweeted that Strike has many other professional athletes, musicians, and celebrities that are waiting to be onboarded to receive BTC as part of their Salary.
Ethereum Overtakes $700 for the First Time Since 2018
For Ethereum holders, it has been a very profitable year. Although Ethereum has yet to reclaim its all-time high prices like Bitcoin, it has still recovered to price levels that have not been seen in years. This week marks the first time that ETH is trading for more than $700 since 2018.
With the growth of DeFi and the launch of Etheruem 2.0, there are a lot of positive signs for the future of Ethereum. In 2020, ETH has grown by over 575% to its current price of $750.
World’s Largest Asset Manager Looking for a Blockchain Lead
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with almost $8 trillion worth of assets under management, has recently posted a job application for a Blockchain Lead.
According to the job posting, BlackRock is looking for someone with experience in, “articulating the technological foundations of blockchain technology, including cryptographic hash functions, distributed network consensus mechanisms, and public-private key cryptography; devising and articulating fundamental valuation methodologies for crypto-assets.”
If the world’s largest asset manager starts researching, analyzing, and investing in blockchain and cryptocurrency-based projects, the floodgates may be opened as others follow suit. It will be very interesting to see how BlackRock decides to move forward with this new role.
Bitcoin (BTC) Knocking on the Door to $30,000
With the crazy price action that has surrounded Bitcoin the last few months, it would be impossible to do a weekly summary without mentioning Bitcoin’s continuous all-time highs.
With 2020 coming to an end and Bitcoin seeing a record year, will we see the see price of BTC eclipse $30,000? According to BeInCrypto’s technical analyst, BTC may be nearing a top, as lower time frames start to show weakness.