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On Sunday, the White House hosted an Ultimate Fighting Championship to celebrate Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. Takes were had by all, so the event served its purpose in the never-ending American culture wars.
Normally that’s not something Alphaville would care about, but former Alphavillain Jemima Kelly drew our attention to an interesting aspect in her own column on the matter:
Generously stumping up this reward is the Singapore-based Crypto.com, a company already closely linked to the president and various Trump family ventures. It will be delivering this “$1mn bonus” (shared out between the winners) in the equivalent value of “CRO”, a cryptocurrency that it has created out of thin air, and of which Trump Media kindly agreed to buy $105mn’s worth last year. The value of CRO has plummeted by about 82 per cent over the past 10 months, and its trading volumes are thin. So adding to the fun for the fighters will be the challenge of trying to cash out their winnings.
Hosting a UFC event on the White House lawn ostensibly to celebrate America’s 250th birthday where the prize is a shitcoin set up by a Trump-affiliated crypto company is so 2026 that it hurts. But moving on . . .
In case you missed it — and there have been a LOT of announcements like this related to Trump’s family — Crypto.com signed a “strategic partnership” with Trump Media last year. This was supposed to lead to a rewards system of some kind on its social media platform Truth Social, and the use of CRO as a “utility token”.
The main real effect seemed to be the Trump Media acquiring $105m worth of “Cronos” (CRO 685mn tokens at the time) and Crypto.com buying $50mn of Trump Media’s common stock.
The price of CRO initially doubled in price on its announcement, but subsequently collapsed. In its first-quarter results, Trump Media reported that its overall stash of CRO was 756mn tokens, which it had acquired for $114mn.
At pixel time that’s worth $46.9mn, and Trump Media is precluded from selling any of the stash for another two years or so under the August 2025 agreement.
Jemima pointed out that CRO trading volumes are thin, so the UFC winners might have trouble cashing out their winnings. They should be able to do so — the real problem may be that by doing so they send CRO’s value spiralling further.
At pixel time, the $1mn prize money amounts to about 16.13mn CRO. The cryptocurrency’s spot daily trading volume over the past 24 hours has been about $4mn, according to CoinGlass, so you’d think the UFC fighters will be OK. But liquidity is extremely balkanised across various exchanges, and the market depth for CRO looks pretty dismal, so the impact will be noticeable.
Coinmarketcap.com estimates that even if you aggregate volumes across various crypto exchanges then CRO is roughly the 95th most actively traded cryptocurrency, and miles behind the likes of household names like . . . Pump.fun, Bonk or Pudgy Penguins.
At least the UFC winners will also share $250,000 of stablecoins issued by World Liberty Financial, which should be easier to cash out. And yes, WLF is another Trump family crypto venture.
