UFC Octagon Goes to the White House, Stablecoin Receipt Goes to Congress 🥊

UFC Freedom 250 delivered a record-setting night of bonuses on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14, President Donald Trump's 80th birthday, with World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin handling $250,000 of the $425,000 Performance of the Night payouts per winner. Crypto.com separately backed the $400,000 Fight of the Night bonuses, and 14 fighters competed for roughly $1.65 million in total bonus money, a record for a UFC card. World Liberty Financial, co-founded by Trump in 2024, served as presenting sponsor and pushed USD1, a dollar-pegged token with reserves in US Treasuries and cash equivalents, into one of its most prominent consumer deployments to date. USD1 launched in March 2025 and now operates on Ethereum, BNB Chain, Tron, and Solana.

The event came as a House probe into World Liberty Financial's ownership structure continued. A UAE firm linked to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser and brother of the UAE president, acquired a reported 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million. A separate Tahnoon-linked firm then used USD1 to settle a $2 billion investment in Binance. Congress has focused on what it means for a foreign state official to own nearly half of a sitting US president's crypto company, and for that company's stablecoin to clear a $5 billion market cap and rising. USD1's circulating supply has grown to about $4.6 billion as World Liberty Financial seeks a federal banking license.

The visibility push also follows a borrowing controversy at World Liberty Financial. The company borrowed more than $75 million in stablecoins from Dolomite, a DeFi lending protocol whose co-founder Corey Caplan advises WLFI, using 3 billion of its own WLFI governance tokens as collateral and depositing its own USD1 as part of the arrangement. The borrowing pushed the USD1 pool to 93% utilization, temporarily blocking retail depositors from withdrawing. WLFI repaid $25 million of the position, then minted $25 million in fresh USD1 days later, actively managing the token's supply through April. World Liberty Financial did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

World Liberty Financial is also in litigation with Justin Sun, the crypto entrepreneur and early buyer of WLFI governance tokens, who sued the company alleging it improperly froze his holdings. WLFI countersued for defamation. The UFC's Zach Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, framed the bonus structure in commercial terms, saying, "A victory in Washington should mean money in your pocket immediately, not when the bank opens." Todd Phillips, a crypto legal observer, added, "Paying the fighters in the USD1 stablecoin would have the same economic function as writing them a check." Performance of the Night winners collected their bonuses in USD1 on the South Lawn of the White House, ensuring that the same afternoon's payouts were immediately visible to the lawmakers already asking who else profits when they settle.