The growing rage around cryptocurrencies has captured the attention of the 23-year old tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, who has been exploring ways as to where she can invest in the space. “I was actually just talking with my agent about cryptocurrencies,” Osaka said in an interview last week, as reported by Bloomberg.Â
She said the continuous stream of conversations around Dogecoin, especially on her Twitter feed, stoked her interest even before her agent approached her with the idea to invest. “I know that online, everything is getting bigger. I remember reading about Dogecoin.. there’s going to be something new and interesting that’s going to pop up.”
Dogecoin is a parody cryptocurrency created by software engineer Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in 2013. Palmer jokingly coined the phrase “Dogecoin” to himself and took to his Twitter account to post the now-infamous line, “Investing in Dogecoin, pretty sure it’s the next big thing.” It immediately sparked interest from the meme-fuelled crypto community.
“As athletes, our career isn’t that long, and so I just like being very smart with it,” Osaka said. “I like when my agent tells me there’s opportunities. And in a weird way, I like to fail a little bit because it makes you understand what didn’t work and why.”
The 23-year-old has displayed a keen business sense and a willingness to wager her own money in a way other tennis stars rarely do this early in their career. That includes investments in salad chain Sweetgreen and the North Carolina Courage—a women’s professional soccer team. She also unveiled her own nonfungible token (NFT) last week.
Recently, Osaka also joined the advisory board of Autograph, Tom Brady’s NFT Platform, along with Tiger Woods, Tony Hawk and others. She released her second collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the platform last week.
NFTs are digital assets that represent a wide range of unique tangible and intangible items, from collectible sports cards to virtual real estate and even digital sneakers.
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