A look at the companies behind the expensive ‘Crypto Bowl’ ads, then versus now, as Super Bowl LVII approaches

• Super Bowl LVI was dubbed the “Crypto Bowl” after advertisements from crypto companies caused a stir.
• The broader crypto industry suffered billions in losses in 2022, highlighted by the collapse of FTX.
• Here’s a look at the ads of 2022 and the year that FTX, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and eToro each had.

Super Bowl LVII is just over three weeks away, and speculation about who will buy valuable in-game ad time has begun, with some companies already release teasers of their advertisements.

But in 2022, the game has been dubbed the “Crypto Bowl,” with FTX, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and eToro all debuting with ads, as well as Bud Light incorporating NFTs. in his ad.

Months before the Super Bowl, several cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were hitting all-time highs, but 2022 ended up being a much tougher year for crypto than many expected. The industry lost approximately $2 trillion in market value, according to CNBC.

Here’s a look at the current status of the four companies that advertised in the last Super Bowl.

FTX

Exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried collapsed in November after reports surfaced in crypto Coindesk post that Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm, Alameda Research, was heavily invested in FTT, the digital currency created by FTX.

Shortly after the report, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced plans to sell over $500 million of his own FTT holdings. The announcement sparked panic among fellow FTX investors, and the exchange saw around $6 billion in withdrawal requests over the next 72 hours.

Shortly thereafter, FTX was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried resigned from the company.

In December, the SEC accused Bankman-Fried of defrauding investors, alleging he used FTX client funds to conceal losses on Alameda’s balance sheets. He was later arrested in the Bahamas and has spent the past month speaking to the media and write your own Substack newsletter, attempting to explain what he believes went wrong, largely against the advice of his lawyers.

Coinbase

Coinbase’s ad, one of the most talked about of the Super Bowl, was popular enough to briefly crash the website, along with Coinbase chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee. pretending that more than 20 million people visited the page in one minute.

Compared to FTX, other crypto companies that advertised during the Super Bowl had a remarkably steady year given the volatility in the industry, but each had their issues.

Insider previously reported on Coinbase layoffsits formwork services in Japanand its fluctuating stock price, which currently sits at just over $55, about 70% below its one year high of just over $200 in early 2022 when the announcement ran. However, the price of the exchange has risen nearly 20% in the past week of trading as the crypto market appears to have stabilized after the panic caused by the collapse of FTX.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a December interview, he expected the company’s 2022 revenue to be at least 50% lower than 2021.

Crypto.com

—Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) February 14, 2022

Follow the trend to install by much of the crypto and tech industries in the first weeks of 2023, Crypto.com was also forced to announce redundancies, reducing its workforce by 20%. It is the second round of layoffs in six months for the exchange, which also laid off around 5% of employees in July 2022.

Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek said in a statement last week that the summer layoffs had prepared the exchange for the crypto’s biggest downturn, but the collapse from FTX has further shaken consumer confidence in the industry, forcing more cuts.

eToro

At the time of the Super Bowl, eToro was probably the least well-known of the four in-game advertising crypto companies, as it had less users than Coinbase and Crypto.comand FTX had spent more on endorsements and marketing in the United States.

The exchange also had a relatively stable year 2022, but was not spared from the biggest crypto chaos, as it still had to cut 6 percent of its employees in a series of layoffs last summer.

The layoffs also came the same week eToro announced the postponement of its merger with special-purpose acquisition firm FinTech Acquisition Corp. V, according to CoinDesk. The merger would have made eToro public in the United States, and the postponement would have been a mutual decision between the companies.