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This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Major Problem”. Click on here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.
I all the time discover it humorous when I’m attending a Bitcoin occasion like Bitcoin 2023 — or subsequent 12 months’s Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville — and a struggle fan acknowledges me with a bewildered look of their eyes and asks,
“Cyborg?!…What are YOU doing right here?”
The reply all the time 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 turn out to be of its success. Each 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, 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 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 quite a lot of martial arts, in that anybody and everybody can profit from taking part, and the proof-of-work is confirmed within the constructive, life-changing outcomes.
I’ve been preventing 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 reside sporting occasions on the earth, entertaining a really international fanbase. If you struggle for cash, it is named “prize preventing”, with cash being the prize. As a fighter, our careers have very quick incomes intervals the place we now have to hunt the largest “cash 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 reveals a tremendous international progress fee 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 robust resemblance in how it’s actually evolving into a world phenomenon, rapidly turning into frequent tradition and reaching a tipping level the place it’ll not be simple.
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 will have banned the game within the U.S. Via schooling, regulation, and self reform, finally audiences obtained to see the game of MMA evolve into what it’s at present: organized, sanctioned, and comparatively secure for the rivals.
After 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, guaranteeing that the true advantages of a decentralized, peer-to-peer alternate 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 realized that regardless of the previous Kung Fu motion pictures, there was no “5 touches of loss of life” punch. Over time, we noticed the simplest martial arts get confirmed inside the cage, finally inflicting rivals to solely concentrate on these strategies that had been confirmed to be efficient and useful throughout an precise struggle.
I see Bitcoin doing to finance what MMA has achieved to conventional martial arts. The primary 15 years of Bitcoin has taught us extra in regards to the store of value 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 simplest retailer of worth — confirmed to be essentially 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 simplest and useful device at saving your worth long run.
BJJ isn’t karate and Bitcoin isn’t 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 appear 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 only system of fight.
Bitcoin isn’t crypto. Bitcoin is decentralized, digital foreign money 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 particular person or entity is in cost and it proves itself every day as the simplest retailer of worth, block after block, by means of 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 vital to distinguish between Bitcoin and cryptos in an effort to perceive why Bitcoin is the simplest hybrid system of finance.
If my trade has taught me something it’s that ladies are wanted to guide 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 at present, it’s wonderful to see how important ladies have been to its general progress. Now we see the largest occasions being showcased by prime feminine athletes, and we witness coaching services world wide crammed with younger, motivated, and hungry ladies eager 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 world wide 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 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 crammed with 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, in an effort to have longevity and success as a fighter, it is advisable perceive the idea of “time choice”. As an athlete, you can’t be out partying, consuming poor meals, and having fun with fast gratification in order for you long-term success. Success requires us to concentrate on successful the small every day targets with the understanding that each one the hassle is rewarded with a victory come the evening of the struggle. I take 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 may be solely ever going to be 21 million bitcoin accessible, the idea of delayed gratification and time choice turns into simple to concentrate on. Just like successful 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 preventing”, 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 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 thousands and thousands of pay per views.
The Bitcoin community jogs my memory quite a lot of these early combined 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’ll come the tipping level that can pressure a world acceptance of Bitcoin.
Followers admire my ability, braveness, and focus once I step inside the cage to compete in a championship prize struggle, 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 struggle.
The following time you see your favourite UFC or Bellator MMA fighter at a Bitcoin convention don’t look bewildered. As a substitute 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 Major Problem”. Click on here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.
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