Despite the White House’s claim that the upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) posed “no conflict of interest” regarding President Donald Trump, a new development directly undercut that claim and established a firm connection between the event and the “Trump family’s financial interests,” The Guardian reported Sunday.
As revealed by UFC on Friday, fighters participating in the event will be partially paid “in a form of cryptocurrency issued by Trump family business World Liberty Financial.” Some fighters will also receive “USD1 stablecoins” issued by World Liberty Financial, the finance company founded in 2024 by Trump and a number of his family members.
The revelation could potentially benefit World Liberty Financial, which sees the Trump family “receive 75% of net proceeds when [the company] sells tokens, plus a cut of stablecoin returns,” The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle lashed out at the media for reporting on the matter, telling The Guardian that the “Fake news’ continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interests are irresponsible.”
Todd Phillips, who The Guardian described as an “expert in crypto at the Klaros Group,” told the outlet that UFC fighters being paid in Trump-linked cryptocurrency amounted to “advertising.”
“Paying the fighters in the USD1 stablecoin would have the same economic function as writing them a check but announcing to the world they are doing it in USD1 sounds like they are [advertising] to the world that USD1 is out there and that it is connected to the UFC and the White House,” Phillips told The Guardian.
As of last December, World Liberty Financial had sold around $1.4 billion worth of digital assets, creating “billions in new wealth for the first family,” the Journal previously reported, describing it as “unprecedented for a president to have such far-reaching business interest while in office, including in areas his administration regulates.”