University of Kentucky basketball players can now mint their own NFTs as brand ambassadors for Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX

• University of Kentucky basketball players can now be brand ambassadors for the FTX.US crypto exchange.
• The players can make and sell non-fungible tokens on the exchange's NFT platform.

University of Kentucky basketball players can now mint their own NFTs as brand ambassadors for the US arm of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX crypto platform.

The players will also get monthly stipends in US dollars on FTX debit cards in addition to being able to create and sell their own non-fungible tokens for profit using the company's NFT platform, according to a press release reported on by Bloomberg.

Earlier this year, the National Collegiate Athletic Association voted to allow student athletes to profit off their names, images, and likenesses, reversing a previous rule that barred them from doing so. The change opened the door for hundreds of thousands of athletes to start monetizing their brand.

Now, basketball players for the Kentucky Wildcats, which boasts eight NCAA championships, are doing so with the quickly growing crypto exchange.

"We're excited to come on board as a team," said Wildcats' guard Davion Mintz, according to Bloomberg, adding that the players "look forward to learning more about the world of cryptocurrency from one of the top companies in the industry."

The company did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

FTX, started in 2019 by Millennial billionaire Bankman-Fried, recently scored a $25 billion valuation after a so-called meme funding round in which it raised $420 million from 69 investors. Also last month, the company launched its NFT marketplace on the Solana blockchain, Insider previously reported.

NFTs are a type digital asset such as a piece of art verified with blockchain technology, and have soared in popularity this year. In the third quarter alone, NFTs had $10.7 billion in trading volume, a more than 700% increase from the three months prior, according to DappRadar data.