Bellator Welterweight World Champion Rory MacDonald is Bringing Crypto to MMA
Cryptocurrency was on the mind of Bellator fighter Rory MacDonald well before he became the welterweight world champion.
“In 2014 I was introduced to Bitcoin from my coach Firas Zahabi the week I was fighting Tyron Woodley,” MacDonald said. “Since then we have stayed interested in the cryptocurrency space, and it so happened that [Dash’s] Jeff Smith and Firas had connected over doing a project together with Dash. Since then Firas connected me and Jeff.
“Everything came together very organically as we worked on a proposal for my next fight sponsored by Dash. The community really rallied behind the idea and I believe this is just the start of the Dash takeover into the MMA community for cryptocurrencies.”
MacDonald is a true believer in cryptocurrency’s potential for the sports industry and for everything outside of that. It is evident by the way MacDonald tweets and retweets in support of cryptocurrencies like Dash and Bitcoin Cash.
Firas Zahabi, MacDonald’s coach who turned him on to cryptocurrencies, believes that more athletes in MMA will soon want to be paid in cryptocurrencies — and this idea could hold true for all professional sports.
“Yes I do, more and more fighters will want to be paid via cryptocurrency, not only because the value keeps rising but also because it is far more efficient than traditional banking,” Zahabi said.
MacDonald acknowledged that he’s not the only MMA fighter who is interested in cryptocurrencies.
Fellow Bellator fighter Michael Chandler signed an endorsement deal with CoinLion shortly after MacDonald began representing Dash.
“Some of us like to give our money to a broker and let them do all the trading but a lot of us want to have our hands it in, especially with something like crypto where there’s so much information out there and it’s such a new space that we want to have more control,” Chandler said.
Additionally, fighters Connor McGregor and John Fitch have been lobbying with the UFC to start accepting crypto payments.
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