When things don’t go as planned in your career, finding opportunities in other areas is the way to go, according to Louis Neal, a former National Football League (NFL) defensive tackle.
Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Dubai Blockchain Economic Summit 2022, Neil shared the story of how he went from playing professional soccer to exploring the financial world, which eventually led him to bitcoin.
BTC
cursors down
$16,828
and crypto wallets.
Louis Neil with Cointelegraph reporter Ezra Regera. Photography: Roland Jordan
Neil explained that his expectations were high when he started playing football. Like many aspiring professional athletes, he thought he was going to be the star of the show. However, things did not turn out as he had hoped. He said:
“I thought I was going to get a lot of playing time. But during that year, I was a backup. […] So, I had to develop another skill that could change my life and myself. That’s what got me into the financial industry.”
The former soccer player went into trading currencies, futures and commodities before discovering cryptocurrencies. “As you trade, you are exposed to other asset classes. And this is exactly how I was exposed to Bitcoin and other asset classes in the crypto space.” Eventually, he became the CEO of a crypto wallet project called Kryptic.
Related: The Houston Texans became the first NFL team to sell a game kit with encryption
Given Neil’s experience as a forex trader, Cointelegraph asked him to share his thoughts on the recent decline in fiat currencies like the euro and the pound sterling. According to Neal, Bitcoin may continue to decline despite its steady performance as the US dollar rises. It is to explain:
“The market will follow the economy at the end of the day, even if it’s bitcoin. So, just because bitcoin is flat, doesn’t mean it can’t go down, right? Because if you look at the dollar, the US dollar is strengthening against all the majors.”
When asked about Web3 technologies such as non-fungible tokens that professional athletes use to interact with fans, Neal said it’s important to simplify things and empower athletes by making the user experience simpler. “I was in the locker room. Many of them don’t even know how to download a wallet and buy cryptocurrency.”
Neil stressed that athletes should be able to do it themselves so they can have full control of their brand and not have third parties do it for them: “We have to make it easy for it to be adopted en masse by athletes.”
