Sean Culkin does not think or talk like a typical athlete or human, which is how we get to the part where he’s doing something nobody has done before.
The Missouri grad and Chiefs tight end — he signed a reserve/futures contract in February — is the first NFL player to convert his entire salary to bitcoin.
“To be honest, I don’t really view it as an extremely high-risk play,” Culkin said.
There is a lot to get to here, from a boy who heard his father talk of investing in gold to a man who graduated from Mizzou with a finance degree and is working on an MBA. He shared a locker room for three years with Russel Okung, who was the first NFL player to convert part of his salary to bitcoin.
Before we get to all that, though, a quick explanation. Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency, a decentralized digital currency that can be bought, sold and exchanged directly without a bank. Every transaction is listed on a public ledger, which helps ensure trust. Bitcoin launched publicly in 2009 and its supply is limited to 21 million coins. It once sold for less than $150 per coin; it’s now around $50,000.
Bitcoin is not backed by any government or other institution, and its price has been volatile — just in the last week, it’s fallen more than 10 percent.
Culkin describes his investment strategy as risk-averse by nature. He values diversification and risk mitigation. So going all-in like this is out of character, but this is a move that Culkin has thought about in different ways for five years.
“I zoomed out to the bigger picture,” he said. “You see an asset that grew to a trillion-dollar market cap in 12 years, which I don’t think has been done in any other asset, the fact that it’s had three, four, five corrections of 50-plus percent here, we are (near) all-time highs. When I started to break away from viewing volatility as risk, it didn’t seem very risky to me.”
The basic bet is that bitcoin will appreciate at a higher level than more traditional investments, and do so at a time when inflation rates have appeared to be affected by stimulus and other factors. None of this is meant as investment advice. Hopefully that goes without saying. We all have different priorities and different interests and are at different places in our lives.
Culkin expected to work on Wall Street before the NFL became a career. He has some bitcoin now and plans to live this year on cash while investing more heavily into bitcoin. Not everyone has that luxury, of course, and not everyone has his particular perspective.
He’s not concerned with day-to-day volatility because this is an investment he expects to live with for years.
“I think I regret every sell I’ve had for short-term gain, or fear of capital loss,” he said. “So I want to take my emotions out. Betting on myself, knowing that I can fall back on my MBA and go find a job. That was a big integral part, also, in making this decision. Worst-case scenario I probably would be living the same life I’m living now. There’s certain times in life when you have high conviction to make concentrated positions.”
However this plays out, Culkin will not be as deep into bitcoin as Okung. Culkin’s stipend for OTAs is being converted to bitcoin, but he won’t make real money from the Chiefs — $920,000 base salary — until and unless he’s on their Week 1 roster.
This is where Culkin’s conviction hits. He’s committed to investing heavily into a highly volatile asset and doing it more than four months in advance. Bitcoin could collapse, it could be selling at $100,000, or anything in between.
Culkin knows this all sounds wild. Remember the mention of his dad? Culkin’s father worked in sales but invested heavily in gold. He talked to Sean about the reasons and the strategy. Culkin sees a lot of similarities with bitcoin and, in fact, it’s a comparison many have made — the only reason gold is worth money is because people decided it held value, same as bitcoin.
Culkin says his dad doesn’t get it, which is fine. He’s already thought through the possibilities, including total disaster. He’s decided he would have more regret missing out if this investment does what he believes it will than he would if it does what some fear.
Either way, he’s at peace with his choice. Either way, it’s the two biggest parts of his life continuing to work together, a man who expects to work in finance full-time once he’s a former football player navigating his specific place in this world.
“I think now I know my niche is going to be the overlap of football and crypto,” he said. “Because I believe that crypto is the future.”
