Lucas Jumalon, a 22-year-old from Spokane, Washington, won the 2026 WSOP Main Event on August 5, taking home $10 million after outlasting a field of 9,208 players at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. Solana SOL$96.44+3.7% co-founder Raj Gokal stepped onto the stage to present Jumalon with the championship bracelet, the final public act of Solana's inaugural season as the WSOP's presenting sponsor.
The ceremony put Gokal on ESPN's broadcast of the Main Event final table, the highest-profile moment of Solana and MoonPay's first summer of zero-fee crypto tournament buy-ins.
Second-Youngest Main Event Champion After Outlasting 9,208 Players
Per WSOP's final table results, Jumalon arrived as the chip leader with 194 million chips and held that lead wire to wire, a feat last achieved by Koray Aldemir in 2021. At 22 years and roughly five months old, he is the second-youngest Main Event champion in WSOP history, trailing only Joe Cada, who won in 2009 at age 21.
Heads-up play concluded against Lauri Saaskilahti, a 40-year-old Finnish amateur who collected $6 million in second place. Before this summer, Saaskilahti had $138,000 in total live tournament earnings. Jumalon, a May 2026 business administration graduate of Grand Canyon University, is also the first player from Washington state to win the Main Event and the fourth consecutive American champion.
The official @WSOP post from the ceremony described Jumalon as having shared "his goal of becoming poker's next Moneymaker and inspiring a new generation of players."
Gokal Presents the Main Event Bracelet at Solana's WSOP Season Finale
The @WSOP account's post of the ceremony named it plainly: "Main Event bracelet presented by @rajgokal @solana." Gokal, who co-founded Solana alongside Anatoly Yakovenko, presented the bracelet in his capacity as Solana's representative for the season's closing ceremony.
The Solana Foundation's presenting sponsorship, announced in June, enabled players to pay the $10,000 tournament buy-in in SOL, USDC, or USDT with zero processing fees, using the WSOP LIVE app. Jumalon's win, with Gokal on stage on ESPN, gave that sponsorship its highest-visibility closing moment.
MoonPay and Zero-Fee Buy-Ins Processed $23M Across the Summer Series
Solana reported $23 million in Solana-powered tournament buy-ins across the summer series, a figure Solana Compass covered when rasmr won the inaugural WSOP Solana Showdown on August 5. That total spans the full summer, not any single event.
MoonPay served as the payment infrastructure, connecting players' wallets to the WSOP LIVE app with no processing fee on the buy-in side. The exact crypto share of the Main Event's buy-in pool is not disclosed.
WSOP CEO Ty Stewart said at the partnership's June launch: "Solana's speed and efficiency mirror the fast-paced energy of our tournaments, and we are excited to showcase their technology to our global audience."
Stablecoin Prize Payouts Planned at WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas, December 2026
Buy-ins in crypto went live for the summer series; prize settlements in stablecoins did not. WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas this December is the planned venue for the first stablecoin payouts, where international tournament winners will be able to receive prize settlements on the Solana network rather than wait for international wire transfers.
That settlement option addresses a real constraint: international players receiving large prizes from US venues face wire-transfer delays that stablecoin settlement would cut. Whether the Bahamas event builds on the $23 million summer volume will depend on how many players opt in. The Main Event result (a 22-year-old winning $10 million, with a blockchain co-founder handing him the bracelet) is the kind of story that makes that case to an audience well outside crypto.
