This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Main Concern”. Click on right here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.
I at all times discover it humorous when I’m attending a Bitcoin occasion like Bitcoin 2023 — or subsequent 12 months’s Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville — and a combat fan acknowledges me with a bewildered look of their eyes and asks,
“Cyborg?!…What are YOU doing right here?”
The reply at all times appears apparent to me, “as a result of I’m a Bitcoiner!”
One factor that makes Bitcoin particular is that it’s for everybody and that the extra you perceive it, the extra sure you develop into of its success. Every time I meet somebody and discover out they’re additionally a Bitcoiner, I immediately really feel a reference to them — a way of respect. It’s laborious to elucidate to somebody who isn’t concerned in martial arts, nevertheless it’s a sense similar to how I really feel round my Muay Thai or Brazilian jujitsu sparring companions. Possibly that is the rationale for the bewildered seems to be on the convention; I do know we’re each a part of a group of monetary freedom warriors. In some ways, Bitcoin jogs my memory a variety of martial arts, in that anybody and everybody can profit from collaborating, and the proof-of-work is confirmed within the constructive, life-changing outcomes.
I’ve been combating professionally for 18 years and through that point have received each championship within the sport of MMA. I’m the present Bellator MMA Champion and former UFC, Invicta FC, and Strikeforce Featherweight Champion which makes me the one “Grand Slam Champion” within the historical past of the game — a title reserved solely for individuals who have received all 4 main World Championships. Throughout my time as a fighter I noticed the game change dramatically from a “No Holds Barred” spectacle into one of many largest-grossing reside sporting occasions on the earth, entertaining a very international fanbase. If you combat for cash, it is called “prize combating”, with cash being the prize. As a fighter, our careers have very quick incomes durations the place we’ve got to hunt the largest “cash fights” in an effort that we can save and make investments that cash into retirement.
MMA is a comparatively new sport. This 12 months the UFC — the biggest MMA promotion — is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. A glance again on its transient historical past exhibits an incredible international development fee in reputation and an acceptance that has by no means been witnessed in skilled sports activities earlier than. Whereas the Bitcoin community is lower than half the age of the game of MMA, I see a powerful resemblance in how it’s really evolving into a worldwide phenomenon, rapidly turning into frequent tradition and reaching a tipping level the place it is going to now not be plain.
Early within the historical past of “Final Combating” there have been few guidelines. With no athletic fee sanctioning the sporting competitors, Congress tried to create legal guidelines that might have banned the game within the U.S. By means of training, regulation, and self reform, finally audiences obtained to see the game of MMA evolve into what it’s immediately: organized, sanctioned, and comparatively protected for the opponents.
Once I meet fellow Bitcoiners who’re educating themselves in regards to the community, advocating for adoption, and even working their very own node or miners, I take a look at them just like the early pioneers of my sport of MMA. I do know that every of us collectively play an vital position in serving to strengthen the Bitcoin community, making certain that the true advantages of a decentralized, peer-to-peer change of worth are by no means compromised.
The primary 30 years of the game of MMA has taught us extra about hand-to-hand fight than the earlier 200 years of martial arts coaching mixed. With the early Model versus Model MMA fights the viewers and practitioners rapidly discovered that regardless of the outdated Kung Fu films, there was no “5 touches of loss of life” punch. Over time, we noticed the best martial arts get confirmed within the cage, finally inflicting opponents to solely deal with these methods that have been confirmed to be efficient and invaluable throughout an precise combat.
I see Bitcoin doing to finance what MMA has accomplished to conventional martial arts. The primary 15 years of Bitcoin has taught us extra in regards to the retailer of worth than the primary 150 years of fiat currencies mixed. Upon getting been “Orange Pilled”, it’s like signing up for “Monetary MMA”. When you perceive how bitcoin is the best retailer of worth — confirmed to be essentially the most sturdy, moveable, divisible, fungible, scarcest, trustless, censorship-resistant, and universally accepted as a type of cash — you can also make it your monetary focus, figuring out it’s the best and invaluable software at saving your worth long run.
BJJ shouldn’t be karate and Bitcoin shouldn’t be crypto! As an athlete in MMA, it’s my job to coach in a number of completely different kinds of martial arts. To a novice watching a martial arts class, there won’t seem like a lot of a distinction between a karate uniform and a Brazilian jujitsu uniform. Regardless of the same uniforms, the 2 martial arts couldn’t be anymore completely different. One focuses on punches and kicks (karate), whereas the opposite focuses on wrestling and submissions (BJJ). Most individuals don’t perceive that MMA stands for “blended martial arts” and that we use guidelines from Olympic sports activities like boxing (punches), taekwondo (kicks), wrestling (takedowns), and judo (submissions) to compete in hybrid competitors with the aim of proving what’s the best system of fight.
Bitcoin shouldn’t be crypto. Bitcoin is decentralized, digital foreign money exchanged via a peer-to-peer community. It’s open-sourced and permits anybody to take part with no central level of management. Nobody particular person or entity is in cost and it proves itself every day as the best retailer of worth, block after block, via proof of labor. Similar to the methods used within the sport of MMA, the proof is within the work and the outcomes (rewards). It’s vital to distinguish between Bitcoin and cryptos in an effort to perceive why Bitcoin is the best hybrid system of finance.
If my trade has taught me something it’s that ladies are wanted to steer the revolution. Regardless of the primary UFC happening in 1993, it was not till I received the Strikeforce World Championship in 2009 towards Gina Carano that the game of MMA had a feminine acknowledged as undisputed World Champion. Trying on the sport immediately, it’s superb to see how very important ladies have been to its total development. Now we see the largest occasions being showcased by high feminine athletes, and we witness coaching services around the globe stuffed with younger, motivated, and hungry ladies desirous to show themselves within the sport of MMA.
On the Bitcoin 2023 convention in Miami I obtained the chance to attend the second annual “ladies of Bitcoin” brunch hosted by Natalie Brunell, which had over 250 ladies from around the globe in attendance. It was inspiring to satisfy so many younger, educated, motivated ladies working collectively to make sure the Bitcoin community turns into a type of monetary empowerment for ladies all around the globe. I really feel assured that years from now, as we glance again on the journey of Bitcoin, that the historical past goes to be stuffed with tales of feminine entrepreneurs, builders, and evangelists who have been instrumental within the community’s development and development as a result of Bitcoin is all-inclusive — each race, faith, and intercourse.
In my sport, in an effort to have longevity and success as a fighter, you want to perceive the idea of “time choice”. As an athlete, you can’t be out partying, consuming poor meals, and having fun with quick gratification in order for you long-term success. Success requires us to deal with profitable the small every day targets with the understanding that each one the hassle is rewarded with a victory come the night time of the combat. I take a look at bitcoin and the apply of stacking sats (DCA) with that very same mindset. When you resolve on a Bitcoin technique and also you perceive there’s solely ever going to be 21 million bitcoin obtainable, the idea of delayed gratification and time choice turns into straightforward to deal with. Much like profitable a championship belt in my sport, the outcomes of all of your laborious work being saved in sound cash goes to be life-changing.
Early within the historical past of the game of “final combating”, it was taken off the air. MMA largely made it via this “darkish period” due to a devoted loyal fanbase that spent their time on web boards, and sharing VHS movies of fights to make sure folks continued to get publicity to this creating sport. By no means in one million years did I think about myself combating in entrance of fifty,000 followers inside a soccer stadium and promoting hundreds of thousands of pay per views.
The Bitcoin community jogs my memory a variety of these early blended martial arts followers who invested their very own time, vitality, and efforts into the group as a result of they believed within the outcomes. Much like these early years in my sport, there isn’t a turning off the web and due to that the Bitcoin community goes to proceed to develop. It’s going to proceed to get stronger, and with it is going to come the tipping level that may drive a worldwide acceptance of Bitcoin.
Followers admire my talent, braveness, and focus after I step within the cage to compete in a championship prize combat, however the actuality is they aren’t so completely different from me. The best way I see it, everybody who swallows the orange capsule has already signed the contract for the last word cash combat.
The following time you see your favourite UFC or Bellator MMA fighter at a Bitcoin convention don’t look bewildered. As an alternative give them a heads-up, figuring out you might be each monetary freedom warriors coaching as a part of the Bitcoin community of prized fighters!
This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Main Concern”. Click on right here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.