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- The Canadian Elite Basketball League has become the first professional sports league in North America to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment
- Players will be able to join the programme and receive a portion of their salary in cryptocurrency
- The league made the decision after receiving numerous requests from players to accept bitcoin as a form of payment
The Canadian men’s basketball league, the CEBL, will allow professional basketball players to receive a portion of their pay in cryptocurrency. A partnership with the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Bitbuy has enabled the new payment option.
Bitbuy is a service that converts Canadian dollar salaries into bitcoins
The deal with Bitbuy was announced by the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) just days before the start of the league’s third season, on June 24. The four-year-old league debuted in 2019 with six teams, all of which are owned and managed by the Canadian Basketball Ventures group.
It now claims that the crypto partnership will be the first of its kind in North America for any professional sports league. Commissioner and CEO of the CEBL, Mike Morreale, stated that their collaboration with Bitbuy demonstrates our dedication to players as well as our forward-thinking approach to how we conduct business.
They value Bitbuy’s contribution to the growth of Canada’s official national pro basketball league.
Basketball players will be able to opt-in to receive a portion of their salary in bitcoin thanks to Bitbuy (BTC). The trading platform will convert payments made in Canadian dollars into cryptocurrency and deposit the digital coins into the players’ personal cryptocurrency wallets.
As part of the agreement with the CEBL, the exchange, which has over 300,000 users in Canada, will also become an official sponsor of the league.
Basketball players want to be paid in bitcoins
The partnership represents a significant shift in how athletes think about compensation, according to Charlie Aikenhead, VP of Marketing at Bitbuy. He went on to say that the crypto company is proud to support homegrown Canadian sports and that they are excited to help the CEBL’s players protect their long-term wealth by paying them in Bitcoin.
Bitbuy and the CEBL have teamed up in response to basketball players expressing interest in making cryptocurrency payments to the league’s management. They cited Russell Okung of the NFL, who became the first professional athlete in North America to be paid in bitcoin last year. The offensive lineman for the Carolina Panthers announced in December that he would receive half of his 13 million-dollar salary in BTC.
Kimbal Mackenzie of the Guelph Nighthawks, who will be among the first CEBL players to be paid in bitcoin, was quoted in a press release as saying that the opportunity to be paid in bitcoin is something he is very excited about. Cryptocurrency, he believes, is the way of the future.
Mackenzie believes that this is an investment that will appreciate significantly over the next few decades, and that his decision was simple. In his opinion, the crypto salary option also emphasises that the CEBL is one of the best professional sports leagues in the world.
Individual investors and businesses have sought to protect their funds in uncertain economic times as a result of the global pandemic, and cryptocurrency prices have risen significantly over the last year. In April, BTC, the cryptocurrency with the largest market capitalization, hit a new high of over $63,000. It has since dropped below $40,000 per coin, and is now trading between $35,000 and $36,000 per coin on Saturday.
Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while pursuing his post-graduation major in blockchain development. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing, along with coding. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing skills, and a reliable craft at explaining the concepts such as blockchain programming, languages and token minting. He also frequently shares technical details and performance indicators of ICOs and IDOs.
