The Money Fight

This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Major Challenge”. 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 yr’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 arduous to clarify 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. Possibly that is the explanation for the bewildered seems on the convention; I do know we’re each a part of a neighborhood of monetary freedom warriors. In some ways, Bitcoin jogs my memory plenty of martial arts, in that anybody and everybody can profit from collaborating, and the proof-of-work is confirmed within the optimistic, life-changing outcomes.

I’ve been preventing 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 many 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 stay sporting occasions on this planet, entertaining a really world fanbase. While you combat for cash, it is called “prize preventing”, with cash being the prize. As a fighter, our careers have very brief incomes intervals the place we’ve got to hunt the most important “cash fights” in an effort that we will save and make investments that cash into retirement.

MMA is a comparatively new sport. This yr the UFC — the biggest MMA promotion — is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. A glance again on its temporary historical past exhibits a tremendous world development price in recognition 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 world phenomenon, shortly turning into widespread tradition and reaching a tipping level the place it’ll now not be simple.

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 might have banned the game within the U.S. By training, 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 rivals.

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 Type versus Type MMA fights the viewers and practitioners shortly realized that regardless of the outdated Kung Fu films, there was no “5 touches of demise” punch. Over time, we noticed the best martial arts get confirmed inside the cage, ultimately inflicting rivals to solely deal with these strategies that had been confirmed to be efficient and precious throughout an precise combat.

I see Bitcoin doing to finance what MMA has executed to conventional martial arts. The primary 15 years of Bitcoin has taught us extra concerning the retailer of worth 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 essentially 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, understanding it’s the best and precious instrument at saving your worth long run.

BJJ will not be karate and Bitcoin will not 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 may not 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 “combined 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 purpose of proving what’s the simplest system of fight.

Bitcoin will not be crypto. Bitcoin is decentralized, digital forex 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 strategies 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 so as 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 going down 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. Wanting on the sport right this moment, it’s wonderful to see how very important girls have been to its general development. Now we see the most important occasions being showcased by high feminine athletes, and we witness coaching amenities world wide 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 world wide in attendance. It was inspiring to fulfill so many younger, educated, motivated girls working collectively to make sure the Bitcoin community turns into a type of monetary empowerment for ladies all world wide. 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 had 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, so as to have longevity and success as a fighter, it is advisable 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 if you’d like long-term success. Success requires us to deal with profitable the small every day targets with the understanding that each one the trouble is rewarded with a victory come the evening of the combat. I take a look at bitcoin and the follow of stacking sats (DCA) with that very same mindset. When you resolve on a Bitcoin technique and also you perceive there may be solely ever going to be 21 million bitcoin accessible, the idea of delayed gratification and time choice turns into simple to deal with. Much 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 preventing”, 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 growing sport. By no means in one million years did I think about myself preventing 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 plenty of these early combined martial arts followers who invested their very own time, power, and efforts into the neighborhood as a result of they believed within the outcomes. Much 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’ll 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 way in which I see it, everybody who swallows the orange capsule has already signed the contract for the last 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, understanding 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 Major Challenge”. Click on right here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.

Source link