Whether the on-again-off-again collapse of cryptocurrency ends up being a crater or just a bump in the road for a medium of exchange almost no one over the age of 30 can explain or understand, there are already some noteworthy individuals who appear to have lost out quite a bit on the fall of Bitcoin and other forms of digital cash.
Among those individuals are a number of professional American athletes, including former No. 1 overall NFL pick Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Though Lawrence hasn’t potentially lost the most money (that honor belongs to Toronto FC forward Ifunanyachi Achara of Major League Soccer), the 22-year-old quarterback is probably the most prominent athlete to see his crypto shares crap out while trying to cash in. Lawrence, according to a chart shared by Sun Sentinel Miami Dolphins beat reporter David Furones, may have lost more than $15 million after having his signing bonus paid out entirely in cryptocurrency including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana and deposited into a Blockfolio account.
“I’m really excited to be joining the Blockfolio team,” Lawrence said at the time. “When it comes to my crypto portfolio, I wanted a long-term partner in the space that I could trust.”
As the fluctuating market has made clear, completely trusting Blockfolio or any other crypto-related entity is probably not the best idea. However, as USA Today points out, Lawrence may not actually have lost as much cash as the above graphic indicates because there is the possibility he sold high when Bitcoin was valued at more than $66,000 in October instead of holding onto it. (It is worth about $21,000 today.)
“What we don’t know is if and when Lawrence, or any of the other athletes’ losses were realized. Bitcoin was at about $54,000 when Lawrence’s deal with Blockfolio was announced last April. So it’s possible he actually made a profit if he pulled out at or near the October peak,” per the publication. “Of course, for those who are still invested, it’s possible their losses could reach even more than what’s listed above. But as people who apparently believed in crypto enough to put millions into it, they’d tell you the market is going to turn and they’ll still potentially make money or break even.”
At this point, it’d probably be a better bet to wager on Jacksonville winning the Super Bowl than Lawrence making money on the value of his signing bonus, but stranger things have happened.
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