Jon Fitch, is officially the first professional athlete to have been sponsored by, and paid in, digital currency. Nautiluscoin will be visible as one of his sponsors on July 5th. Fitch, a professional MMA fighter in the welterweight division, is due to take on Dennis Hall, at WSOF 11. Maybe someday Jaden Newman will get sponsored in Digi-Dollars,

Nautiluscoin sees this sponsorship as the start of their journey toward "acceptance as a medium of exchange". They are very proud to have sponsored Fitch who they refer to as the ' No 2 World Ranked Welterweight'.

What they meant so say is that Fitch is Ranked 2 within WSOF (see rankings)

If Jon Fitch wins, he will be in line for a shot at the WSOF title. The last title fight he had was back in August 2008, when he fought GSP for the UFC title at UFC 87. Jon, like all who followed, was unsuccessful in dethroning GSP. He was released from the UFC in early 2013, and was promptly signed by WSOF.

With a market capitalization of $841,365, Nautiluscoin is ranked 39th for Digital Currency Market Capitalization. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of them before, after all, the no. 1 ranking Bitcoin represents 93.74% of market capitalization within the top 100.

Coincidentally, Chris Camozzi is fighting in the UFC on the same night, and he will be raising funds directly from fans through Bitcoin in the form of donations. Check out the QR code on his shorts. Camozzi is not the first to use Bitcoin in this way. The Jamaican Bobsled team used Bitcoin donations to pay their way to the 2014 Winter Olympics. However neither of these involve actual sponsorship.

The value of Jon's sponsorship is as yet unconfirmed. Nautiluscoin opened a special account so members could contribute and increase the value of the sponsorship. The benefit to Nautiluscoin, is that by paying him more, they can improve their prominence amongst Finch's sponsors. If you are a fan of digital currency and MMA, then it's a great opportunity to personally support them both.

While stepping into a cage and letting another man hit you in the head for 15 minutes is a risk unto itself. We are not sure that Jon Fitch fully understands the financial risk he is exposing himself to, but accepting pay in the form of a digital currency. (see definition of financial risk)

Due to the volatile nature of digital currencies, even if Jon knew how much Nautiluscoin he was going to be paid, he'd have no idea what that meant in US Dollars. If Jon had been told he'd be paid 1,000,000 Nautiluscoin, then this could have meant anywhere between $114,800 and $141,400 US Dollars. That's a fluctuation of over 23%, and that was within the last 7 days.

While the future may be digital, in the present, cash is still king. A medium of exchange needs to be stable. People want certainty with their currencies. Volatility and risk have their place in the speculative markets.

Imagine if, at the end of your work week, you received 23% less money than last week, for no reason other than 'market volatility'. This volatility is why we at TFG feel that Digital Currencies are a very long way from being accepted as a medium of exchange.