Are Celebrities Done with Crypto Commercials?
From Matt Damon to Larry David, crypto commercials were once a big thing. But are they popular with celebrities these days?
“Don’t be like Larry, don’t miss out on crypto.”
This was the slogan of one of the ads produced by the once highly popular FTX exchange, featuring the comedian Larry David who portrayed an eternally skeptical individual missing out on opportunities.
With the FTX exchange now bankrupt, and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried facing federal charges, has the era of celebrity endorsements come to an end?
Ben McKenzie, the actor known for the Orange Country TV series and outspoken critic of cryptocurrency, believes the answer is yes.
Speaking to Gizmodo, McKenzie, who is also the co-author of the book Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, offered to turn on TV to see if celebrities or athletes are still promoting crypto.
“Most of those ads have gone away. And it's because you know they've realized unfortunately in retrospect, oops, probably, shouldn't have done that. At best you have done something that [...] a large percentage finds sort of sketchy or morally and ethically objectionable,” he told the host Kyle Barr, who pointed out that there have many celebrities endorsing crypto. This includes Shaquille O’Neal who was tracked down at a Celtics v.Heat NBA game to receive court papers in an FTX lawsuit.
The famous basketball player was a paid spokesperson before the exchange’s implosion.
He added that the celebrities likely realized that they were encouraging people to invest in things “that are often pretty shady and there may be legal liability as well.”
McKenzie also touched upon NFTs, saying that it is interesting to “see how some of it changes”.
“I mean, you'll see people are still trying to sell NFTs a little bit. Even though the market is basically gone and most of the NFT market was below need to begin with anyway,” he said, reiterating that celebrities are likely realizing that it was not a good idea to promote crypto and shouldn't do it again.
An outspoken critic of crypto, McKenzie has criticized celebrities for endorsing crypto projects on a number of occasions. In December 2022, he testified at the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing "Crypto Crash: Why the FTX Bubble Burst and the Harm to Consumers”.
McKenzie has written an array of articles about crypto for different outlets, such as The Intercept, Slate, and more.
In his interview with the Washington Post, he stated that cryptocurrency represents online poker 2.0.
“There are a myriad of similarities between the two … Young men have a higher risk tolerance. They’re more interested in things like gambling. They were very much into online poker when it was a thing … So, it’s no surprise that young men, in particular, were being drawn into cryptocurrency. 42 percent of men 18-29 have purchased, traded, used cryptocurrency … The crypto companies knew who their target audience was,” he told the WP.
He added that crypto exists as a story that doesn’t “really make much sense as an investment because it's unclear what you're actually investing in.”
Previously, GNCrypto reported that Bitcoin got another swipe from Warren Buffet.
