With the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies, it is no surprise that celebrities and athletes are taking an interest, including the former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) two-division champion Conor McGregor who has partnered with various crypto businesses, leading many to wonder how much Bitcoin (BTC) he held.
Indeed, after becoming the poster boy for Dapper Labs’ blockchain collectibles through CryptoKitties developer’s partnership with UFC in early 2021, the featherweight and lightweight double-champion has entered into various partnerships and endorsement deals that have to do with the crypto market.
In September 2022, McGregor was featured in an advertisement for the trading platform XTB which facilitates the exchange of digital assets, commodities, stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and more, as the global fintech company announced his two-year gig as its brand ambassador.
Catching the fallout?
More recently, in the fallout of the FTX collapse, it came to the public’s attention that the Switzerland-based centralized crypto exchange Tiger.Trade (TT), endorsed by McGregor, had connections to Sam Bankman-Fried’s platform, which has claimed that TT was only a partner through integration and it held no responsibility for its partners.
Having said that, despite the Irish MMA star’s various exposures to digital assets and rumors of crypto investments, it is currently unknown how much Bitcoin he has, if any.
Other crypto celebs
Meanwhile, McGregor is not the only UFC fighter, let alone the only famous individual endorsing crypto, as the former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou gave serious thought to accepting 50% of his fight purse in Bitcoin, as Finbold reported in January 2022, and his decision was in the crypto’s favor.
At the same time, American socialite Kim Kardashian came into the limelight after being charged, along with former boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., and former basketball player Paul Pierce, by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the social media promotion of a controversial digital asset offered by EthereumMax (EMAX).
It should also be noted that Crypto.com became the first-ever crypto exchange platform to establish a long-term partnership with UFC as its global Official Fight Kit Partner and UFC’s first-ever Official Cryptocurrency Platform Partner as part of a 10-year deal worth $175 million signed in July 2021.
