Sporting legend Tom Brady has become the latest American professional athlete to embrace cryptocurrency, even as markets recover from the recent crash.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback has accepted an invite to speak at the virtual Consenus crypto conference tomorrow, after accepting a Twitter invite from the CEO of the FTX crypto exchange.

Brady earlier this month switched his Twitter profile to add the “laser eyes for 100k” Bitcoin meme as rumours swirled he was stocking up on BTC. Brady also tweeted he was buying the dip during the crash last week.

He’s the highest-profile US athlete to embrace crypto, but not the only one.

Free-agent offensive tackle Russell Okung is demanding to get paid in Bitcoin before he signs with another football team and Trevor Lawrence, the first overall pick in last month’s NFL draft, will be converting most of his signing bonus from the Jacksonville Jaguars to crypto thanks to a deal with investing app Blockfolio.


 

Carl Icahn and crypto

Brady wasn’t the only big name getting into crypto overnight.

Legendary US billionaire investor Carl Icahn told Bloomberg television that while he doesn’t own any coins, he was looking at getting into the asset class in a “big way”.

“A natural manifestation of the tremendous amount of dollars flooding our economic system is that investors start to get concerned about the value of our currency, and this concern will increase if higher inflation continues,” he said.

“As a result of this, a phenomenon such as cryptocurrency exists.

“Much of the cryptocurrency issued today will not survive, but we believe cryptocurrency in one form or another might be here to stay.”

Icahn said he hasn’t bought any cryptocurrency yet but is studying the crypto sector – and might put US$1 billion into an alternative currency.

Criticism that cryptocurrencies don’t have any underlying value are wrongheaded, Icahn said.

“Well, what’s the value of a dollar? The only value of the dollar is because you can use it to pay taxes,” he said. “I’m looking at the whole business, and how I might get involved in it.”
 

Altcoins gain, Bitcoin quiet

Meanwhile smaller altcoins are soaring today while Bitcoin and Ethereum consolidate well off their highs — although most tokens still have an awful long way to go before are back to their levels from a fortnight ago.

Enjin Coin has been the biggest gainer in the past 24 hours, up 45 per cent to a nine-day high US$1.81. But it traded for over US$2 from mid-March to mid-May, and for over US$3 for a week in April.

Fifteen other top 100 tokens were up by double-digits and 80 of the top 100 coins were in the green at 11am AEST, with only a handful in the red, all modestly so.

Still, formerly red-hot tokens like THORChain, Solana and Kusama were down by over 40 per cent from their highs set a little over a week ago, while Cardano was down 30 per cent. No top 100 token is anywhere near setting a new all-time high.

Bitcoin was trading little changed at US$38,280 ($49,500), while Ethereum had edged higher at US$2,750 ($3,560).

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