When things don’t go as planned in your career, finding opportunities in other areas is the way to go, according to former NFL defensive tackle Lewis Neal.
Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Dubai Blockchain Economic Summit 2022, Neil shared the story of how he moved from playing professional football to exploring the world of finance, which eventually led him to Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency wallets.
Lewis Neal with Cointelegraph reporter Ezra Regera. Pictured: Roland Gordonan
Neal made it clear that his expectations were high when he started playing football. Like many aspiring professional athletes, he thought he would be the star of the show. But things did not go as he had hoped. He said:
– I thought I’d get plenty of playtime. But during that year I was a backup. […] So I had to develop another skill to change my life for my family and myself. This is what prompted me to enter the financial industry.”
The former soccer player went into trading currencies, futures, and commodities before discovering cryptocurrencies. “When you trade, you are exposed to other asset classes. This is exactly how you have been exposed to Bitcoin and other asset classes in the crypto space.” Eventually, he became the CEO of a crypto wallet project called Kryptic.
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Given Neil’s experience as a currency trader, Cointelegraph asked him to share his thoughts on the recent declines in fiat currencies such as the euro and the British pound. According to Neal, Bitcoin may continue to decline despite its steady performance with the US dollar rising. 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, that doesn’t mean it can’t go down, right? Because if you look at the dollar, the US dollar is going up aggressively against all the major currencies” .
When asked about Web3 technologies like the 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 easier. “I was in the dressing room. He said many of them don’t even know how to download a wallet and buy cryptocurrency.
Neil emphasized that athletes should be able to do it themselves so they can have complete control over their brand and not allow third parties to do it for them: “We need to make it easy for athletes to become mass adopters.”
