Formula 1 season begins, teams embrace crypto sponsors

As the flag waves for the 2025 Formula 1 season in Melbourne, Australia, viewers may notice that nearly every team on the grid now sports a crypto sponsor, highlighting how deeply digital assets have embedded themselves into the sport’s fast-paced world.

With major exchanges backing top teams, the F1 paddock has become a showcase for the crypto’s biggest names.

Podium finish or a pit lane disaster?

Crypto.com, one of the biggest crypto exchanges, is one of the eleven global partners of Formula One Group. It is in an exclusive group that includes other global companies like Qatar Airways, DHL, Salesforce, Lenovo, and LVMH.

Most Formula 1 teams have also received sponsorships from some of the biggest companies in the crypto industry.

Gate.io, a top crypto exchange, is sponsoring Red Bull Racing for the 2025 season after it ended its partnership with Bybit.

Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, recently inked a deal to sponsor Aston Martin. This deal was a big milestone as it was the first one to be settled fully using USD Coin (USDC), a popular stablecoin.

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OKX, another large crypto exchange, will continue its sponsorship of McLaren, the 2024 champions. It is one of the three major sponsors of the team, with the other two being Mastercard and Google.

Alpine counts Binance and ApeCoin (APE) as official sponsors. Binance is the biggest crypto exchange with over 200 million customers, while ApeCoin is a cryptocurrency started by Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Kick Sauber has two crypto sponsors: Stake and CoinPayments. Stake is a large crypto-focused casino and sports betting company, while CoinPayments is an Alchemy Pay (ACH) rival that offers fiat offramp solutions.

Cash App, an American payment company owned by Square, is a big sponsor of Racing Bull, Red Bull’s sister team. While Cash App is not primarily a crypto company, it handles billions of crypto payments a year.

MoneyGram, a top money transfer company that has integrated stablecoin payments, is the title sponsor of Haas.

Kraken, the second-biggest crypto exchange in the US, is a key sponsor of the Atlassian Williams Racing team.

Only Mercedes and Ferrari have no crypto sponsorships. Mercedes is still reeling from its association with FTX, the crypto exchange that collapsed in 2022. Ferrari’s last crypto sponsor was Velas, a blockchain company whose token has crashed in the past few years. Its market cap has dropped from over $1.2 billion in 2022 to $13 million today.

Crypto companies are seeking to benefit from Formula 1’s popularity. Estimates are that its audience has been growing in the U.S. and other countries.

The 2025 season could see an uptick in viewers as top teams like Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren, and Mercedes compete for the last time before next year’s regulation changes.

Lessons Learned?

When other sports leagues embraced crypto, it ended up being a fool’s errand.

Recall FTX’s Super Bowl ad campaign in 2022. It was quickly seen as a symbol of the crypto exchange’s rapid and dramatic downfall.

At the time, FTX was riding high, and its ad featuring “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David humorously dismissing major historical inventions aimed to position FTX as the “next big thing.” The ad’s tagline, “Don’t miss out on the next big thing,” was meant to build trust and encourage mainstream adoption of the platform.

Less than a year later, FTX filed for bankruptcy amid allegations of massive financial mismanagement, fraud, and the misappropriation of customer funds by Sam Bankman-Fried and his team.

David’s skeptical character in the ad, who said “I don’t think so” to every great invention, became a meme as many wished they had also said “no” to FTX.

To make matters worse, the ad ran during one of the most-watched TV events, amplifying the fallout. It became a symbol of the broader recklessness and marketing excess of the crypto boom, leading to skepticism toward crypto ads and influencing regulatory scrutiny. David, along with other celebrity promoters of FTX, even faced lawsuits from investors who felt misled.

The National Basketball Association also heavily featured crypto ad campaigns, particularly during the 2021-2022 season when the cryptocurrency market was booming. Companies like Crypto.com, FTX, Coinbase, and others invested millions into partnerships, sponsorships, and ad campaigns within the league.

One of the biggest moves was Crypto.com purchasing the naming rights to the iconic Staples Center in Los Angeles, renaming it the Crypto.com Arena in a $700 million deal. The deal was intended to cement crypto’s mainstream presence, but as the market crashed and scandals like FTX’s bankruptcy unfolded, the optics turned sour.

The NBA also ran crypto commercials during games and the playoffs, often featuring celebrity endorsements. However, as crypto winter set in and scandals emerged, the enthusiasm for these partnerships cooled significantly.

The market downturn and legal troubles of companies like FTX led to a more cautious approach, and some partnerships became liabilities.

Overall, while the NBA’s embrace of crypto initially seemed like a smart move to capture a hot trend, it became part of the broader narrative of overhyped promises and market instability in the cryptocurrency sector.

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