This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Major Difficulty”. Click on 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 grow to be 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 arduous to elucidate to somebody who isn’t concerned in martial arts, however it’s a sense similar to how I really feel round my Muay Thai or Brazilian jujitsu sparring companions. Perhaps that is the explanation for the bewildered appears 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 gained 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 gained 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 dwell sporting occasions on the earth, entertaining a very international fanbase. Once you combat for cash, it is named “prize combating”, with cash being the prize. As a fighter, our careers have very brief incomes intervals the place now we have 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 temporary historical past reveals a tremendous international progress 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 robust resemblance in how it’s actually evolving into a world phenomenon, rapidly turning into widespread tradition and reaching a tipping level the place it can not be plain.
Early within the historical past of “Final Preventing” there have been few guidelines. With no athletic fee sanctioning the sporting competitors, Congress tried to create legal guidelines that may have banned the game within the U.S. Via schooling, regulation, and self reform, ultimately audiences bought to see the game of MMA evolve into what it’s right this moment: organized, sanctioned, and comparatively protected for the opponents.
Once I meet fellow Bitcoiners who’re educating themselves concerning the community, advocating for adoption, and even operating 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 necessary function in serving to strengthen the Bitcoin community, guaranteeing 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 Fashion versus Fashion MMA fights the viewers and practitioners rapidly discovered that regardless of the previous Kung Fu motion pictures, there was no “5 touches of loss of life” punch. Over time, we noticed the best martial arts get confirmed inside the cage, ultimately inflicting opponents to solely concentrate on these methods that have been confirmed to be efficient and precious throughout an precise combat.
I see Bitcoin doing to finance what MMA has achieved to conventional martial arts. The primary 15 years of Bitcoin has taught us extra concerning the store of value than the primary 150 years of fiat currencies mixed. After you have 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 probably the most sturdy, moveable, divisible, fungible, scarcest, trustless, censorship-resistant, and universally accepted as a type of cash — you may make it your monetary focus, figuring out it’s the best and precious software at saving your worth long run.
BJJ is just not karate and Bitcoin is just not crypto! As an athlete in MMA, it’s my job to coach in a number of completely different types 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 is just not crypto. Bitcoin is decentralized, digital forex exchanged by means of a peer-to-peer community. It’s open-sourced and permits anybody to take part with no central level of management. Nobody individual or entity is in cost and it proves itself day by day as the best retailer of worth, block after block, by means of proof of labor. Identical to the methods used within the sport of MMA, the proof is within the work and the outcomes (rewards). It’s necessary to distinguish between Bitcoin and cryptos with the intention to perceive why Bitcoin is the best hybrid system of finance.
If my business has taught me something it’s that girls are wanted to steer the revolution. Regardless of the primary UFC happening in 1993, it was not till I gained 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 right this moment, it’s wonderful to see how very important girls have been to its total progress. Now we see the largest occasions being showcased by prime feminine athletes, and we witness coaching services all over the world stuffed with younger, motivated, and hungry girls eager to show themselves within the sport of MMA.
On the Bitcoin 2023 convention in Miami I bought the chance to attend the second annual “girls of Bitcoin” brunch hosted by Natalie Brunell, which had over 250 girls from all over the world in attendance. It was inspiring to satisfy so many younger, educated, motivated girls working collectively to make sure the Bitcoin community turns into a type of monetary empowerment for ladies all all over the world. 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 progress as a result of Bitcoin is all-inclusive — each race, faith, and intercourse.
In my sport, with the intention to have longevity and success as a fighter, it’s good to perceive the idea of “time desire”. As an athlete, you can’t be out partying, consuming poor meals, and having fun with rapid gratification if you need long-term success. Success requires us to concentrate on profitable the small day by day objectives with the understanding that each one the trouble is rewarded with a victory come the night time of the combat. I take a look at bitcoin and the observe 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 desire turns into simple to concentrate on. Just like profitable a championship belt in my sport, the outcomes of all of your arduous 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 by means of this “darkish period” because of a devoted loyal fanbase that spent their time on web boards, and sharing VHS movies of fights to make sure individuals continued to get publicity to this growing sport. By no means in 1,000,000 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, power, and efforts into the group as a result of they believed within the outcomes. Just like these early years in my sport, there isn’t any 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 can come the tipping level that may pressure a world acceptance of Bitcoin.
Followers admire my talent, braveness, and focus once I step inside the cage to compete in a championship prize combat, however the actuality is they don’t seem to be so completely different from me. The best way I see it, everybody who swallows the orange tablet has already signed the contract for the final word cash combat.
The subsequent 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’re each monetary freedom warriors coaching as a part of the Bitcoin community of prized fighters!
This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Major Difficulty”. Click on here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.
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