JP Richardson, co-founder and CEO of Exodus Movement (NYSE American: EXOD), opened part of the Exodus Summit today in Omaha, Nebraska, with an announcement about where he believes the company’s customers are already.
Exodus will become the official payment partner of the UFC, Richardson said, and the partnership will go live on June 1.
This launch coincides with the UFC holding its “Freedom 250” fight event on the White House Lawn to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, making it the first UFC event to be held on those grounds. Branding will appear inside the octagon, in broadcast spots and through activation footprints in the venue itself.
“When the fans walk through the gates, you’ll see Exodus activation footprints all over the White House,” Richardson said.
Richardson framed the deal along two dimensions: brand exposure and trust. For a financial application, trust is not a marketing objective, but rather a result of a solid product.
Consumers don’t experiment with unrecognized brands when their money is involved, and Richardson argued that the UFC’s reach, 700 million fans across 165 countries, provides the kind of repetitive, high-stakes visibility that accelerates trust-building to a degree that few media properties can match.
The agreement is multi-year. Richardson described the target demographic as crypto-curious, young and digitally native — one that already aligns with what Exodus has spent over a decade building towards.
A deep dive into Exodus Pay
Later in the day, Chief Product Officer Ain Sonayen delivered what amounted to a formal retirement announcement for the wallet category, at least as Exodus defines it.
Sonayen’s argument was spot on: a wallet is a starting point, not a destination. Exodus began as a wallet because it was the primary entry point for people getting into Bitcoin and crypto in 2014. That era, he made clear, is over.
The company is repositioning itself as a money platform — what Sonayen called a “money OS” or operating system for money — built around three core experiences: stablecoin cash for everyday use, crypto for ownership, and extended utility for more sophisticated users.
Exodus Pay is the first layer of that platform. It’s shipping now, available across all 50 states, with global expansion planned for later in 2026. Users can fund the app via Apple Pay, bank transfer, or existing crypto balances.
Charges work anywhere Visa is accepted. Peer-to-peer sending is free and instant and only requires a phone number – including for recipients who have not yet installed Exodus, who receive the money upon signup.
The self-reliance distinction means more here than meets the eye. Competing payment products have user balances on their own balances. If a company freezes an account, the money stops. Exodus Pay stores private keys on the user’s device; the company never takes over the funds.
In a post-GENIUS Act regulatory environment, this architecture has both compliance and competitive weight. The stablecoin market surpassed $300 billion in circulation earlier this year, and Exodus Pay said it is among the first consumer products to launch within that framework.
Sonayen also outlined the revenue logic. Payments companies do not win on transaction volume alone; they win on balances.
Exodus Pay is designed to keep money inside the ecosystem – users add money, earn rewards in any asset including Bitcoin, spend with their card and earn again. The revenue stack includes stablecoin balances, card exchange, foreign exchange, on-ramps and utility expansion over time.
CFO James Gernetzke, quoted in the company’s press release, called Exodus Pay “recurring, scalable and fully ours” after record Q4 earnings — language that signals the company sees this launch as the beginning of a fundamentally different business model, not a feature release.