A Digitized Athlete

Brooklyn Nets sixth man Spencer Dinwiddie signed a contract for $34 million over three years. Now, Dinwiddie hopes to digitize his contract into a digital token. The plan is to pay back investors principal plus interest from his future salary. For investors, an advantage is that the tokens will have little correlation with other financial assets. There are numerous examples of securitizing cash flow from future earnings, from Bowie bonds, physicians who sell part of the future revenue in their practice, to fledgling golfers, who get money from backers in exchange for future winnings. However, these assets are not without risk. In November 2015, Fantex pulled an IPO that planned to sell future earnings for running back Arian Foster. Foster retired from the NFL less than a year later after several injuries.