UFC fighter Luana Pinheiro will be paid in Bitcoin
Bitwage, which is a crypto payment service, stated on July 27 that Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Luana Pinheiro is going to become the first woman athlete to be paid in bitcoin.
Luana is a 28-year-old Brazilian strawweight fighter with 10 wins and 1 loss. Last March, her boyfriend Matheus Nicolau who is also a UFC fighter started getting paid in crypto for his fights. Bitwage described the two as “a true UFC power couple on the bitcoin standard”.
UFC fighters are not new to receiving their salaries in crypto. At the beginning of the year, heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou stated that he would be getting half of his fees for UFC270 event in bitcoin via a partnership with Cash App. Earlier, we’ve also written about UFC’s partnership with Crypto.com which resulted in a special ‘Fan Bonus of the Night’ bitcoin bonus for those participating in pay-per-view tournaments.
UFC fighters are not new to receiving their salaries in crypto. At the beginning of the year, heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou stated that he would be getting half of his fees for UFC270 event in bitcoin via a partnership with Cash App. Earlier, we’ve also written about UFC’s partnership with Crypto.com which resulted in a special ‘Fan Bonus of the Night’ bitcoin bonus for those participating in pay-per-view tournaments.
In a comment for Bitcoin.com, Pinheiro noted the challenges of the MMA sport and how mental strength plays a vital role in overcoming them. She also added:
I do not think I will have a problem with bitcoin going down or up [in fiat value]. If it was not volatile it would not go up either. Think about this: it takes on average 10-15 years for an individual to get a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, so my time preference here is equally long if not longer. Black belt time preference I call it. Everything else is just noise to me and the lower the price, the more bitcoin I will be able to secure for the future.
Jonathan Chester, the CEO of Bitwage, said that the team met up with Pinheiro in Rio de Janeiro to get her started with the crypto payment service. The head of the company also noted that it is vital to educate people on new ways they can be paid for their work and guide them to financial independence.
Bitcoin has been operating since 2014 and conducted transactions worth more than $150 million. It is used by 50,000 users and collaborated with 2,000 companies from all over the world.
