Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy Is Selling His ‘Soul’ as an NFT

He was once Bitcoin-rich. Then Bitcoin-poor. Now he’s...well, he still owns more of the cryptocurrency than most. Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy today told the Twittersphere that he bought 1 Bitcoin—after having lost money last year when he “paper-handed” (or panic-sold) the asset. 

The eccentric media entrepreneur also put his “soul” on sale: a Portnoy non-fungible token (NFT) is now up for grabs. At the time of writing, the current top bid was above $12,000.

NFTs, for those who still don’t know, are unique tokens (usually on the Ethereum network) that can be used to represent just about any digital artifact, including artwork, audio, or video files. The market for NFTs has exploded in recent months. In the first quarter of 2021, NFTs generated more than $1.5 billion in sales, according to DappRadar. In all of 2020, only about $200 million in NFTs were sold.

Portnoy, who has had a rocky relationship with crypto, told followers that the first-ever Barstool Sports NFT could be given away for free: the highest bidder will have a chance to make a sports bet with the Barstool founder. If they win the bet, the NFT is all theirs and they don’t have to pay anything. 

“Whoever wins this—you have a chance to get it for free,” Portnoy said. “If the bet wins, I’ll give you back the money. If you lose, then you pay whatever is on the bid.” 

“If you want to own a piece of history and a piece of my soul, here is your chance,” he said in a Twitter video. 

The NFT is an image from Portnoy’s popular “One Bite Pizza Review” YouTube show. It also features an interesting character he stumbled across whilst filming the review. 

“It’s the pizza review I did in Miami with the guy with no arms, he’s carrying the suitcase—one of the most popular pizza reviews I’ve ever done,” he said. “It’s art, it’s beauty, it’s magic.”

Portnoy, who set up the sports news and popular culture website in 2003, said in a separate announcement that his latest cryptocurrency investment of 1 Bitcoin was all he could afford. 

“50 grand, I’m the proud owner of one Bitcoin,” he told viewers—adding that he sold all his Dogecoin.

Portnoy learned about Bitcoin last year from Gemini co-founders and Bitcoin billionaires, the Winklevoss twins. He invested $1 million in the currency but sold it just two weeks later when the price started to dip.

He has since said that he “fucked-up Bitcoin” by selling it, now that the price is up. 

How long will it be before he “paper-hands” his investment this time?