Snoop Dogg, Tyson & Co. What celebrities are involved in crypto?

With the cryptocurrency market's development, major players in the digital asset industry realized that achieving mass adoption would be impossible without active advertising targeted at a broad audience. When a little-known bitcoin maximalist talks about crypto, even if they are genius and successful serial entrepreneurs, it doesn’t impress ordinary people. However, people are eager to listen to this information when it is delivered by a world-famous boxer or Oscar-winning actor.

 

Consequently, crypto startups changed their different tactics and began to involve celebrities from the show business and sports industry to advertise their services. Many stars – from the famous rapper Snoop Dogg and Hollywood actor Matt Damon to famous boxing champion Mike Tyson and American football star Tom Brady – joined the community of crypto supporters and started promoting this market. Furthermore, some of the celebrities were so fascinated by the emerging industry that they later became true fans and advanced Web3 gurus.

Matt is one of the leading actors in Hollywood, an Oscar-winning star of the drama “Good Will Hunting”. He is famous for such films as “Saving Private Ryan”, the Ocean's Eleven movie franchise, “The Bourne Identity”, “Interstellar”, “The Martian”, etc. In October 2021, the leading American exchange Crypto.com approached him with a partnership proposal. Matt agreed and received a modest donation of $1 million to his own charity. TAs a result, an impressive advertising campaign called “Fortune Favors the Brave” was created, which was seen by tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people around the world. The ad made a splash and became one of the most well-known and memorable in the crypto industry. Unfortunately, its release coincided with the start of a protracted downtrend lasting more than a year, so Matt faced a wave of unfair criticism from disappointed investors. And so, he lost his passion for the field.

Tom Brady is an American football legend.  From 2000 to 2019, Brady played for the New England Patriots in the National Football League (NFL) before joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020. He is the most decorated player in the history of American football, with the impressive seven Super Bowl victories under his belt. 

Despite his stunning career in professional sports, Tom couldn’t refuse a partnership proposal from FTX in the summer of 2021. As part of the deal, he and his supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen starred in several FTX commercials in 2021-2022. 

However, the ending of this story was grim. FTX went bankrupt in late 2021, and Tommy broke up with his wife, even though it happened due to unrelated reasons (he didn't want to quit big sports for Gisele). It’s a real shame, since they looked like the perfect couple in the FTX ads.

A former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Kid Dynamite retired from big sports. He spent years trying to find a new career. Everything from growing cannabis & selling associated goods to hosting podcasts. Still, one thing fell missing... When Iron Mike discovered the cryptocurrency industry, all the pieces came together.

As the popularity of Web3 and NFTs soared in 2021, he launched a collection of non-fungible tokens on the OpenSea marketplace. These limited edition NFT tokens were created by aspiring digital artist Corey Van Lew upon the request of the ex-boxer.  One of the tokens depicted the notorious, yet legendary, moment when Mike bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear. The collection included other interesting pieces. The sales volume at the time exceeded 425 ETH or $1.3 million based on the exchange rate. 

He also promoted the services of the crypto ATM network in Las Vegas. And just last year, in 2022, he threw his support behind the Solana coin and network.   

Reese is a Hollywood star with her own star on the Walk of Fame and two Academy Awards for her roles in "Walk the Line" and "Wild". She is also known for the films like "Legally Blonde," "Four Christmases" and the TV series "Big Little Lies." But did you know she's also into cryptocurrency?

In December 2021, Reese tweeted her support for NFT creators, acknowledging that "cryptocurrency is here to stay (for a long time)."

After a while, Reese's media company Hello Sunshine entered into a partnership with the NFT community World of Women (WoW). Witherspoon made this move to create a digital community dedicated to engaging women in investment while increasing their financial literacy. Essentially, she's urging women to help with the establishment of a new, decentralized Internet, Web3, powered by digital currencies. As a result of such collaboration, two NFT collections and several media projects have been released. But Reese seems to have no intention of settling down.

This is likely the number one celebrity in the show business world when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Snoop Dogg has been associated with cryptocurrencies since 2013. Back then, the rapper posted a tweet offering to buy his new album X with Bitcoin. At first, people thought it was just another prank, until retweets from the crypto company BitPay and the Coinbase exchange made it clear that the offer was quite serious.

In 2017, Dogg joined the online brokerage Robinhood as an investor, and in 2018, he performed at the blockchain party XRP Community Night.

Meanwhile, he's become a true admirer of Web3, metaverse, and NFTs, investing a lot of money into the industry. 

Yuga Labs dedicated one of their tokens to Dogg as a part of their prominent Bored Apes Yacht Club NFT collection featuring a bunch of sad monkeys. Since then, Snoop has been promoting his NFT in every possible way. He bought an ice cream van and painted it in the BAYC style. He also made a music video with another NFT BAYC fan, Eminem, where both rappers transform into their Bored Apes. Yuga Labs utilized such a performance to its advantage by releasing official Snoop & Eminem merchandise and offering it for purchase only with its native token, Apecoin.

At the end of 2021, the artist released an NFT in the form of a 3D collage made from his own photos. The auction was held on the SuperRare marketplace.

In September 2021, Snoop admitted he was Cozomo de Medici, who had amassed a collection of 247 NFTs, including nine CryptoPunks. DappRadar estimated his collection at $17.7 million at the time.

Subsequently, Snoop Dogg launched two more NFT collections on the Crypto.com marketplace, one of which was created in collaboration with the author of the Nyan Cat meme Chris Torres, in addition to several mixtape collections (tracks of new songs in the form of NFTs). 

In 2021, Snoop also joined the advertising campaign for Dogecoin. He produced a humorous video with the amusing name “Snoop Doge.” 

Despite various public reactions regarding the participation of celebrities in the development of the digital asset market, this trend is expected to continue. Crypto companies are likely to continue the aggressive promotion of their services, exploiting the sports and show business industries. Meanwhile, those who are skeptical can keep on believing in the value of government-issued money, even as it loses its buying power due to rising inflation and currency devaluation.