The UFC announced on Thursday that, beginning with UFC 273, the promotion will pay fighters competing on pay-per-view events $60,000 worth of bitcoin bonuses.
The new Fan Bonus of the Night will be comprised of three individual $30,000, $20,000 and $10,000 bonuses to be determined by a fan vote and paid in bitcoin based on the exchange rate in U.S. dollars. The new bonuses are part of the 10-year, $175 million partnership signed between the UFC and Crypto.com in 2021.
“Crypto.com has been an official UFC partner for less than a year, and I’m telling you they are already one of the best partners we’ve ever had,” UFC president Dana White said in a statement. “They’re constantly coming up with new ideas about how we can work together to connect with the fans. This new Fan Bonus of the Night is an awesome way to get fans more engaged in our events while rewarding the fighters for bad-ass performances.”
The new bitcoin bonuses will be in addition to the UFC’s regular performance bonuses, which award each winner $50,000. The UFC’s performance bonuses for Performance of the Night and Fight of the Night have remained $50,000 since 2012.
UFC 273 takes place Saturday at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., with a main card that streams on ESPN+ pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+. The event is headlined by two title fights: Alexander Volkanovski vs. Chan Sung Jung at featherweight and Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan at bantamweight.
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