This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Primary Issue”. 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 here?”
The reply at all times appears apparent to me, “because I am 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. At any time when 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 exhausting to clarify to somebody who isn’t concerned in martial arts, but it surely’s a sense similar to how I really feel round my Muay Thai or Brazilian jujitsu sparring companions. Perhaps that is the rationale 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 whole lot 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 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 dwell sporting occasions on the planet, entertaining a very international fanbase. While you combat for cash, it is named “prize fighting”, with cash being the prize. As a fighter, our careers have very quick incomes intervals the place now we have to hunt the most important “money fights” in an effort that we will save and make investments that cash into retirement.
MMA is a comparatively new sport. This 12 months the UFC — the most important MMA promotion — is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. A glance again on its temporary historical past exhibits a tremendous international progress charge 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 really evolving into a worldwide phenomenon, shortly changing into widespread tradition and reaching a tipping level the place it should not be plain.
Early within the historical past of “Ultimate Fighting” 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 received 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 have 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 trade 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 previous Kung Fu motion pictures, there was no “5 touches of death” punch. Over time, we noticed the best martial arts get confirmed within the cage, ultimately inflicting rivals to solely deal with these methods that had been confirmed to be efficient and beneficial throughout an precise combat.
I see Bitcoin doing to finance what MMA has completed 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. Upon getting been “Orange Pilled”, it’s like signing up for “Financial MMA”. When you perceive how bitcoin is the best retailer of worth — confirmed to be probably the most sturdy, transportable, divisible, fungible, scarcest, trustless, censorship-resistant, and universally accepted as a type of cash — you may make it your monetary focus, realizing it’s the best and beneficial software at saving your worth long run.
BJJ just isn’t karate and Bitcoin just isn’t 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 “mixed 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 only system of fight.
Bitcoin just isn’t crypto. Bitcoin is decentralized, digital forex exchanged by way 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 each day as the best retailer of worth, block after block, by way 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 ladies are wanted to guide the revolution. Regardless of the primary UFC going down in 1993, it was not till I received the Strikeforce World Championship in 2009 in opposition to 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 ladies have been to its general progress. Now we see the most important occasions being showcased by high feminine athletes, and we witness coaching amenities all over the world full of younger, motivated, and hungry ladies eager to show themselves within the sport of MMA.
On the Bitcoin 2023 convention in Miami I received the chance to attend the second annual “women of Bitcoin” brunch hosted by Natalie Brunell, which had over 250 ladies from all over the world 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 girls 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 full of tales of feminine entrepreneurs, builders, and evangelists who had 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 essential perceive the idea of “time preference”. As an athlete, you can’t be out partying, consuming poor meals, and having fun with quick gratification if you need long-term success. Success requires us to deal with profitable the small each day objectives with the understanding that every one the hassle is rewarded with a victory come the evening of the combat. I have a look at bitcoin and the follow of stacking sats (DCA) with that very same mindset. When you determine on a Bitcoin technique and also you perceive there’s 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 exhausting work being saved in sound cash goes to be life-changing.
Early within the historical past of the game of “ultimate fighting”, it was taken off the air. MMA largely made it by way of this “dark era” due to 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 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 whole lot 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. Much like these early years in my sport, there is no such thing as 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 should come the tipping level that can power a worldwide acceptance of Bitcoin.
Followers admire my ability, 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 way in which 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, realizing 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 Primary Issue”. Click on right here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.
