CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A gamble some people took in 2020 is paying off big time for one former Carolina Panthers player.
Russell Okung signed a $13 million deal with Carolina, but he decided to split his salary and put half into the cryptocurrency bitcoin. Now, that $6.5 million investment has turned in $20 million.
Though like a volatile stock market, crypto can have its instability. But financial expert Mark Henry said it's nearly too big to control at this point.
“The idea of cryptocurrency going away, it's here to stay," Henry said. "The genie is out of the bottle. Governments were way behind regulating, and they've lost the ability to at this point, and so we will see it continue to become part of our lives.”
Currencies like bitcoin have been skyrocketing post-election, and Henry explained why that is.
“The new Trump administration that's coming in, he adopted crypto on his own personally," Henry said. "He released his own coin, his own token, and then, you have the people he surrounded himself with, like Elon Musk. Elon Musk has been a crypto guy for a long time."
But will it stay hot? Economics expert Matthew Metzger shared the cryptocurrency journey has been a rollercoaster of a market, and questions remain on what will maintain it’s driving force.
"There's nothing actually happening in the marketplace to drive the value," Metzger said. "It's not like, you know, there's more people moving, and you need more homes, and the home prices go up. That's like a fundamental change. Here's just kind of the spirits, people are optimistic and get more demand, and the price goes up. There's estimated there's about maybe 20,000 different cryptocurrencies as they enter the market. It's just maybe could potentially flood the market. And so, you know, the theory would predict that the value of cryptocurrencies would go lower and lower.”
Henry urged potential investors to do their research before getting into crypto.
"If you really want to be in cryptocurrency, understand it," Henry cautioned. "There's great books that are written about it. Might be boring to some to others. Might be passion, but understand what you're doing before you do it, and as always, make sure you seek wise counsel.”
Contact Myles Harris at mharris5@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, X and Instagram.