On Thursday, undefeated World Champion boxer Floyd Mayweather delivered a staggering uppercut to ICO (Initial Coin Offering) detractors by promoting the upcoming Stox.com ICO to his 16.2 million Instagram followers.
A $hit T$n of Money
In the Instagram post, Mayweather can be seen on what looks like a private jet, with twenty-five stacks of hundred dollar bills on the table in front of him. In the text accompanying the image, he predicts that he will “make a $hit t$n of money on August 26th”. This is the date of his upcoming bout with UFC mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor. He also predicts that he will “make a $hit t$n of money on August 2nd on the Stox.com ICO.”
Whether he is predicting the same $hit t$n of money made on both dates is anyone’s guess. He is expected to be pocketing a cool $100 million for the McGregor fight. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, $100 bills (with a mustard strap) come in 100 note stacks, so 25 x $10,000 means he has a quarter million dollars (assuming they’re real) with him on the plane. Let me do some maths… nah, I’ll stick my neck out and predict that Mayweather isn’t going to make $100m on the Stox ICO. You heard it here first.
*cough* Tax Bill *cough*
Perhaps Floyd could use some his ICO profits to pay off the $22.2 million dollars he owes in back taxes from 2015, the year of his biggest payday from his fight against Manny Pacquiao. He is using the McGregor payday to leverage a temporary reprieve from the IRS, but perhaps he’ll have the money earlier if this Stox ICO goes well?
A Tax Court petition filed on July 5 states: “the taxpayer has substantial assets,” but “those assets are restricted and primarily illiquid.” It is a little bit hard to swallow a claim of reduced liquidity from a guy posing with $250,000 cash… in a private jet. But hey, who am I to judge?
Floyd Mayweather’s tax strategy would knock out your finances https://t.co/oQInYUo9rc
— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) July 19, 2017
Stox.com?
According to their website, Stox is an open source, Bancor based prediction market platform. Built on Ethereum, STX holders will enjoy continuous liquidity, automatic price calculation and the ability to convert STX to ETH directly, without the need to rely on exchanges.
They are looking to raise a (seemingly quite modest compared to some recent ICOs) $30million investment. Despite being virtually unheard of previously, after Floyd’s promotional post one can’t imagine they will have too much trouble achieving that goal. That level of exposure, to a group, most of whom are probably only hearing about ICOs for the first time, should create a gold rush of first time investors.
It isn’t clear whether Floyd Mayweather is intending to actually invest in the ICO or if this is just a promotional gimmick. If the latter then he had better watch out for the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) as well as the IRS, as they’ve been cracking down on undisclosed endorsements. It would be especially bad if the ICO doesn’t go as swimmingly as Mayweather hopes.
Do you think that Mayweather’s promotion of the Stox ICO is legitimate or just a publicity stunt? What do you think of celebrities endorsing ICOs? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Instagram, Wikimedia Commons