Odell Beckham Jr. is one happy Hodler. The current Miami Dolphins wide receiver famously made what some perceived to be a crazy financial move when he opted to take his $750,000 Los Angeles Rams base salary in Bitcoin nearly four years ago.
There was plenty of debate surrounding OBJ’s decision to forgo payment in fiat currency for a speculative digital asset. At the time of his announcement in November 2021, Bitcoin was trading at around $60,000. The following year brought “crypto winter,” a brutal cryptocurrency-wide downturn punctuated by the notorious collapse of the FTX crypto-trading exchange. At its lowest point in 2022, Bitcoin’s value had plummeted nearly 80 percent to under $17,000.
But that’s all history. The top-dog cryptocurrency rebounded in 2023 and surged in 2024, thanks in part to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s monumental approval of Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), which increased accessibility by allowing investors to buy and sell Bitcoin through a regular brokerage account. And the outlook has only improved in 2025, as Bitcoin recorded a new all-time high when it traded above $120,000 in mid-July. To mark the occasion, a very happy OBJ tweeted this:
“Sooooo Bitcoin is at an ALL TIME high today…safe to say we still happy with our decision,” he said on X on July 14.
As Yahoo! Finance points out, Bitcoin is currently trading at around $118,00, which suggests that Beckham’s $750,000 Bitcoin payout from the Rams is now worth just shy of $1.5 million. Even after accounting for federal and state income taxes of 49.3 percent on the $750,000, the monetary value of his Bitcoin salary would now be worth $1.1 million.
The future is looking brighter yet for Beckham Jr. and fellow Bitcoin enthusiasts. Financial outlet Benzinga reports that Bitcoin could top $200,000 by year’s end, at least according to two experts. Bitwise‘s Head of Alpha Strategies Jeff Park and XBTO Managing Director Mas Nakachi made the prediction during a panel discussion for crypto-minded outlet Coinage. Park in particular predicted a massive rally born of an imminent influx of a “wall of money,” i.e. $15 billion in corporate Bitcoin treasury purchases that are slated to go through in the coming months.
“The structural change we’re seeing is a pretty meaningful one,” Park explained. “And the other thing I love about these Bitcoin treasury companies, for the most part, these are never gonna sell Bitcoin.” While Bitcoin traders and investors often take profits following after a period of asset growth, Park said these corporations are buying Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset that likely won’t be liquidated for a long time. According to Park, these corporate purchases could jack Bitcoin’s price up higher in Q3 2025, when those corporate treasury purchases are finalized.
“We’re looking at incredible price action, possibly a supply shock, around September or October when these deals come online,” Park said. When asked about a Bitcoin price target, he added, “We’re going to hit $200,000 by the end of the year. I think that’s a low-hanging fruit.”