Grappling Championships Use Bitcoin To Circumvent Censorship … – Bitcoin News (press release)
Bitcoin proponents often talk about the many benefits the decentralized currency can offer the world, and one of these attributes is bitcoins censorship resistance. This week news.Bitcoin.com chatted with, Firas Zahabi, a well known Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) grappling trainer from Canada who decided to use bitcoin as an incentive to promote online grappling events.
Also read: Markets Update: Bitcoin Cash Rallies for Three Solid Days
Firas Zahabi has trained many champion MMA fighters and is the founder of Tristar Gym, a grappling martial arts training center located in Quebec, Canada. The gym is well known as one of the worlds top MMA training camps, and grappling fights are very popular in the region. However, Zahabi tells us over a phone conversation that the local governments in Canada have deemed holding MMA events illegal. Grappling martial arts itself is legal in the region, but MMA events are not allowed, which gives young Canadian fighters less of an opportunity to compete and show their skills. So Zahabi decided to create online events on Youtube which he calls the Pure Victory Championship and fighters compete for bitcoin prizes. Zahabi believes the act of hosting events online decentralizes the playing field and bitcoin leaves the middle man out of the equation.
Bitcoin.com (BC): Can you tell our readers about the Pure Victory Championship?
Firas Zahabi (FZ): Recently they made grappling events illegal where Im from here in Quebec, and then they made events illegal in Ontario. Quebec is a hotbed for grappling talent, and the biggest MMA event in the world called the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) is happening soon, and two of my students are attending this year. So grappling in Quebec is really popular, but the local governments made it illegal because there was bickering back and forth between event promoters that were calling the cops on each other. They were trying to cancel each others events and corner the market.
Law enforcement got tired of all these calls, and now we are not allowed to have grappling events. Grappling is perfectly legal still, but holding grappling events here is illegal. Alongside this, Canada recently declared bitcoin as a commodity, and to the government, its not money, not a currency. So Im not allowed to hold events and give out prize money, but we are allowed to film and upload ourselves fighting online. And now the fighters get bitcoin, and its kinda like them getting a free t-shirt or swag, because I am giving them a commodity as a prize for participation. We thought it was an excellent idea and the viewers can tip the fighters as well and our grapplers have been making money during an event. The grapplers are also enthusiastic about competing again in the future and the audience absolutely loves it.
Its been all positive feedback and people are following the events. We only have four episodes so far and the fifth episode should launch next week. Its really creating a great buzz with just four episodes.
BC: How much bitcoin have the fighters been getting?
FZ: Theyve been getting roughly $100-300 dollars in bitcoin between winnings and tips. Dont forget that theyre getting bitcoin and that could be worth a lot in the future. This is only after one match, and when you grapple you have to pay to compete, so it helps the fighters earn. Further, these episodes could still give fighters some earnings, and after twenty videos it will create a fishnet effect. I think the fighters havent finished collecting and once they get more and more popular they create a bigger following, and the prizes will get bigger.
BC: What gave you the idea to include bitcoin into these events?
FZ: The politics and the government. They need to let young fighters have a place to release their energy. If these kids cant find anything to do they will likely find some trouble and grappling is such an amazing outlet for the youth. Not only are they getting fit but they are exercising their minds, and they are building a whole community. We are a thriving community, and they just came and shut us down. Could you imagine if they made baseball events illegal? I dont understand it, these kids need an outlet rather than being in the pool halls and the streets. Martial arts is one of the most constructive things a human being can do, especially in their youth.
So I said lets decentralize jiu-jitsu. If we cant have grappling events how can we monetize our skills? The middleman is just such a problem, hes always sticking his hands in our pocket and always bullying us. So lets decentralize our jiu-jitsu, lets make it so the audience can see the competitors compete, pay them in cryptocurrency and remove the middleman.
So my next phase for Pure Victory Championship will be global and what Im going to do is let fighters film their match, and if your game is good enough I will air it, and the winner will get $300 in cryptocurrency. Which is a lot for fighters just starting off, and the internet is hard to stop.
BC: Did the government give a formal explanation to why they made grappling events illegal?
FZ: No they told us if you have any more grappling events they will come and shut us down, and they have already. One major grappling event was canceled with hundreds of competitors. So what Im hoping to do is put the power back into the competitors hands.
BC: Have the fighters mentioned anything about receiving cryptocurrency as a prize?
FZ: They love it, every fighter loves it. Look at the price of bitcoin right now. The guy who recently got $100 worth of BTC is pumped as its worth about $300-400 right now.
The world loves MMA and its a very popular sport and grappling enthusiasts are going to hear an awful lot about cryptocurrency this year.
What do you think about FirasZahabis Pure Victory Championships? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Pixabay, Bitcoin.com,FirasZahabis, and Pure Victory Championship
Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.
Original post:
Grappling Championships Use Bitcoin To Circumvent Censorship ... - Bitcoin News (press release)
- Revealed: The secret code words being used to beat online censorship - The Telegraph - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- New Russian law criminalizes online searches for controversial content - The Washington Post - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Censoring All Men Are Created Equal cost U. Oregon $724K will other universities learn? - The College Fix - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Pixar Censorship Report Addressed By Director Of Studios Next Movie: The Movie Will Morph With Or Without You - Screen Rant - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Advertising Standards Authority Bans Viva!s Dairy is Scary Ad, Sparking Controversy Over Censorship - vegconomist - the vegan business magazine - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- This VTuber Just Raised Over $780 for the ACLU. After Steam's New Content Policies? Her Anti-Censorship Message Is Urgent - VICE - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Desperate Royals Tried to Censor Leaked Kings Funeral Plans - The Daily Beast - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Ready or Not Shows Signs of Recovery After Censorship Controversy - Game Rant - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- When Superman takes a side: Gaza, censorship, and the criminalisation of empathy in America - India Today - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Northeastern research breaches The Great Firewall to look at Chinese censorship - Northeastern Global News - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Ready Or Not Modder Retcons 'Censorship' Changes Within An Hour Of New Patch Going Live - IGN Southeast Asia - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Foreign journalists in the U.S. are self-censoring to protect themselves from the Trump administration - Poynter - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Turkey becomes the first to censor AI chatbot Grok - Global Voices - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- How Iran and Israel control information - Index on Censorship - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- "I've Been Dying To Play This Game For Years": With Ready Or Not Launching On Console Tomorrow, It Looks Like The Censorship Has Already... - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Spotify could pull out of Trkiye in row over censorship pressure - Music Ally - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Indian film board criticised for cutting overly sensual Superman kisses - The Guardian - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Superman's Big Kiss Was Cut By The Censors In India - Kotaku - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Russia and Belarus unveil censored 'patriotic AI' to rival the West - Ynetnews - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- I Would Quit Before They Made Me Do That | Feedback - School Library Journal - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- Reporter's Notebook - July 13th, 2025: An MCTS financial fiasco, Milwaukee arts winners and losers, book censorship in Wisconsin prisons - WTMJ - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- Internet fumes at censorship of kissing scene in James Gunns Superman: They don't have a problem with Housefull 5 | Bollywood - Hindustan Times -... - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Listen to the Trump-Referencing Clipse Track Universal Music Allegedly Tried to Censor - Mother Jones - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- The EUs Censorship Codes Are Coming for the First Amendment - National Review - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Guest column | Book bans dont work. As a kid, I proved it. - The Washington Post - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Ira Wells, who literally wrote the book on book bans, shares his thoughts on the politics of censorship - The Globe and Mail - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Fans SLAM censorship of 33-second kissing scene in James Gunns Superman: 'They don't have a problem with - Times of India - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- After the Bombings, Iran Tightened Its Censorship. Iranians Arent Standing For It. - Council on Foreign Relations - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- All that glitters is not gold: A brief history of efforts to rebrand social media censorship - FIRE | Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Zelensky, Zuckerberg, prolifers, a trans journalist, and a gay person with a Bible. How Russia is censoring the Axios/HBO documentary - Mediazona - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Chinese censorship-busters claim Tencent is trying to kill its WeChat archive - theregister.com - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Ethereum advances toward censorship-resistant scaling with zkEVM layer-1 shift - CryptoSlate - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Peskov admitted to the existence of military censorship in Russia - - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Trump Imposes 50% Tariff on Brazil: Political Tensions and Censorship at the Center - Cryptodnes.bg - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- :Director Honey Trehan on His Film Punjab 95 and the Censorship Battle with CBFC - Frontline Magazine - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Ready Or Not Fans Hate The Game For All The Wrong Reasons - TheGamer - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- China Censors Trump's Bomb Threat on Beijing - Newsweek - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Review | How censors tried and failed to keep LGBT voices out of the movies - The Washington Post - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- UN AI summit accused of censoring criticism of Israel and big tech over Gaza war - Geneva Solutions - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- From gr*pists to nip nops, how self-censorship shapes the language of TikTok : Code Switch - NPR - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Corrido Censorship: The paradox of funding and criminalizing cartel stories - The Oakland Post - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- 'Ready or Not' Devs Unveil a Mod to Remove Censorship In-Game For a More Brutal Experience - player.one - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Centre flays X over 'censorship' claim, says platform delayed unblocking accounts - Times of India - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Turkey blocks Grok content, becoming first country to 'censor' the AI chatbot - Middle East Eye - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- X blasts India censorship order on thousands of accounts - New Age BD - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- 'JSK' Producer Suresh Kumar On Its Censorship: All Issues Began With 'L2: Empuraan' - The Hollywood Reporter India - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Some patriotic reflections on Independence Day - The Verge - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- AI, Fair Use, and the Arsenal of Democracy - RealClearDefense - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democratic nomination for Ithaca Common Council seat decided by just 11 votes - WSKG - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- A Summer Reading List for Americas 250th Anniversary - Ash Center - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- DEEP DIVE: $500 MILLION IN MEDIA FUNDING. BUT WHO'S CALLING THE SHOTS BEHIND THE HEADLINES? Its not just censorship its coordination. In Episode 2 of... - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Emergency: The Indian cartoonist who fought the censors with a smile - BBC - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Media in the Balkans: the rise of oligarchs - Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- From Censorship to Fascism to Extermination: PW Talks with Will Potter - Publishers Weekly - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- 'There is real fear': How Israel's attack on Iran enabled an assault on press freedoms - Middle East Eye - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Vilifying the Vylans or: How I learned to stop censoring and call for death to the BBC - Freedom News - - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Ready Or Not Studio Reveals What Exactly Has Been Censored And It's Not A Lot - TheGamer - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- The EUs Internet Law, a Blueprint for Global CensorshipIncluding on American Platforms? - The Daily Signal - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Blasphemy, Censorship, and the Future of Free Expression in Britain - Quillette - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Ready or Not Dev Releases Before-and-After Screenshots as It Battles Against Censorship Backlash and Steam Review-Bomb Campaign - IGN - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- The humanities must have a role in overseeing AI censorship - Times Higher Education - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- YouTube, Trump Having Productive Discussions Over Censorship Case - The Information - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- 'Warned Not to Talk About It': Overseas Boys' Love Censorship Is Sending Young Women to Jail - Comic Book Resources - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- China is rushing to develop its AI-powered censorship system - Global Voices - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Gov. McKee signs Freedom to Read Act into law - Rhode Island Current - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- 'Ill-conceived from the beginning': Judge ridicules Trump admin for 'slapdash' censorship of public health websites - Law and Crime News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- How censorship affects the artistic expression in film - Times of India - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- What is The Ready or Not Censorship Controversy? Review Bombing Explained - Insider Gaming - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Self-censorship and the spiral of silence - Insight News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Louisiana wants to censor citizen science, but residents are fighting back - News From The States - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- The many complex truths within the censoring of youth parliament - The Spinoff - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Free Speech Victory in Australia for Billboard Chris as X post censorship overturned - Alliance Defending Freedom International - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Read this: Pixar's self-censorship of Elio's queer themes may have doomed it - Yahoo - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- China is rushing to develop its AI-powered censorship system - Global Voices Advox - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- 'The censorship is a step too far': Ready or Not is getting review bombed after developers sanitise the game to adhere to stricter console standards -... - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Keep Them On The Shelf - The Progressive - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- SCOTUS Ruling Condoning Book Censorship Is a Grave Misjudgment. - GLAAD - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Read this: Pixar's self-censorship of Elio's queer themes may have doomed it - AV Club - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- How the Internet Works, and How China Censors It - ChinaFile - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- New Study from ChinaFile | The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters - Asia Society - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]