Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy stuns fans by spending a fortune on Bitcoin and ChainLink in seconds
The sports site founder was given cryptocurrency advice from Olympians and Facebook stars Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss – and fans were gobsmacked when he casually splashed $250,000 on Bitcoin and ChainLink
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Barstool Sports founder and media mogul Dave Portnoy stunned fans on Thursday when he splashed a quarter of a million dollars within seconds on digital currencies.
Fans of the 43-year-old businessman were stunned to watch him splash the cash on cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and ChainLink in a video he shared online.
The American media star – whose sports blog empire is believed to be worth as much as $450 million (£343 million) – was advised by 38-year-old Olympic rowers and Facebook ‘victims’ Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
The Winklevoss twins – who were both played by Armie Hammer in the 2010 David Fincher film The Social Network which showed the duo accuse Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their Facebook idea – run a cryptocurrency buying website called Gemini.
In a video shared on his Barstool Sports social media channels, Dave showed himself getting a crash course in cryptocurrencies and opting to spend $250,000 (£191,000) on a combination of virtual currencies Bitcoin, on which he spent $200,000 (£152,000), and ChainLink, on which he spent $50,000 (£38,000).
As fans watched the star move his mega bucks in a matter of clicks, they took to the comments sections of his posts to express their absolute shock and amazement.
One fan wrote: “Crazy how Dave just dropped $200k into bitcoin like it’s nothing and I’m over here struggling to accumulate 0.2 BTC. RIP my peasant life.”
While another was stunned to see the mogul invest in something he seemingly didn’t understand as he announced at the end of his video he still did not know what Bitcoins are.
The astonished viewer remarked: “drops 250 racks on BTC. ‘I dont know what bitcoin is’ Haha I screamed!
Bitcoin is currently worth $11,880 (£9,078) per virtual “coin”, while ChinLink “coins” are worth $17 (£13) each.
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that some businesses hope can be used to make payments worldwide without the need to pay exchange rate fees – among other purposes.
They can be bought and sold by anyone – while their value has baffled economic experts as they fluctuate wildly.
They can be bought in part or in full, and have been seen by many as a quicker way of increasing wealth than dabbling with the stock exchange.
In 2017, Bitcoin reached an all time high of £15,599 per coin when just one year earlier they had been worth £636 each.
While in the past five months, ChainLink coins have increased in value from £1.72 per coin on 15 March to the current price of £13.06 on 15 August.
Nick King, CEO of GetCrypto.info – which gives insight into the world of cryptocurrencies and provides guides on how to invest in the virtual coins – says the involvement in cryptocurrencies by the likes of the Winkelvoss Twins and Dave Portnoy will increase awareness and make the use of the coins for trading and for general business more mainstream.
He told The Mirror Online: “Dave’s entry into the crypto market shows that digital currencies are entering the mainstream, as well as being taken seriously by institutional investors.”
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