Mickey Mantle Baseball Card Worth $3.5 Mln Goes To Bitcoin-Friendly Auction

Ex-NFL player Evan Mathis, a member of the Broncos when they won the Super Bowl 50, is auctioning a $3.5 mln Mickey Mantle baseball card and is prepared to accept Bitcoin as payment, the AP reported yesterday, March 24.

The card, estimated to have value of $3.5 mln and described by Mantle as “kind of like the Mona Lisa of the sports card world,” is from the spring 1952 collection by Heritage Auctions. The AP notes that $3.12 mln was the highest price ever paid for a card before, when a 1909 Honus Wagner card sold in a 2016 auction.

Mathis, who is selling the card in order to purchase a new house for his family, told the AP that he would accept crypto for the card because “a lot of new money was created in crypto.”

“There’s a lot of people that might have some newfound riches that they might want to diversify with, and I just kind of wanted to spread the target market out a little bit and give those guys a chance to jump in.”

Cryptocurrencies and football have mixed before, as online fantasy leagues have begun offering rewards in Bitcoin (BTC), and this year’s Super Bowl ran an ad -- featuring singer Lionel Richie -- to advertise BTC futures.