🏈 Crypto Bowl

Home » Unlabelled » 🏈 Crypto Bowl

🏈 Crypto Bowl

View in Browser

Tonight: Get ready for a bunch of new crypto ads this weekend. Plus, meet the billionaire tech investor who's propping up the next generation of Trump-y politicians. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

🏈 CRYPTO BOWL

Tell us about the future, Matt.

This Sunday, as you shovel nachos and beer into your face, be prepared for the discomfort you'll feel in your gut – not from the junk food but from the sight of chiseled celebrities uttering words like "blockchain" and "NFT."

The ad breaks during Super Bowl LVI will feature the usual suspects with their reliably clever, extremely expensive 30-second spots. (The priciest will set a company back $7 million this year, according to NBC.)

But new to the scene will be a spate of cryptocurrency pushers and platforms that are increasingly moving into more mainstream advertising (see: Matt Damon's biceps in that cringey Crypto.com ad that's been circulating the past few weeks).

Never mind that bitcoin is down more than 35% from its peak, or that the broader crypto space is a wildly unregulated market prone to extreme swings — hot people are doing it now, so you should, too. Or something like that.

We don't actually know whether Matt Damon (or his biceps) will feature in Crypto.com's upcoming Super Bowl commercials. Ditto FTX, a crypto exchange valued at $32 billion that boasts Tom Brady as a spokesman.

But what's certain is crypto evangelists have won over just enough A-listers to make a play for the mainstream. They are coming for older demographics and anyone else clinging to the sidelines of what they see as the crypto revolution (and what crypto skeptics see as a massive scam).

BIG PICTURE

Crypto firms are making a splash during the Super Bowl for good reason.

Sports fans are about twice as likely as non-sports fans to say they are familiar with crypto, according to a survey from Morning Consult. Similarly, people who bet on sports are for more likely to know what crypto is.

We can already see the sports-crypto overlap growing: Just a few months ago, on Christmas Day, Los Angeles' Staples Center was rechristened Crypto.com Arena as part of a reported $700 million naming rights agreement. In Miami, the Heat now play at FTX Arena (formerly American Airlines Arena).

And while I don't have a survey to back this up, it's not hard to imagine football fans sitting on their couches, buzzed from beer and carbs and game-day adrenaline, perhaps counting their winnings from a friendly Super Bowl cash bet, tapping download on their phones and tossing some cash into the void. That guy from "Good Will Hunting" did it, right?

My colleague Paul R. La Monica has more.

#️⃣ NUMBER OF THE DAY

$120

So, here's reason #8,372 why it would be bad news for Russia to invade Ukraine: Oil prices could soar to $120 a barrel — up from $91 today — if Russia's crude exports are derailed by a conflict, according to projections from JPMorgan. That would drive up prices at the pump, which hit a fresh seven-year high of $3.47 on Wednesday.

💸 THIEL TIME

Donald Trump's most powerful Silicon Valley ally has cleared his schedule – just in time for midterm season.

Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor, is leaving his role on Facebook's board to, as Mark Zuckerberg put it, "devote his time to other interests."

Translation: Thiel is freeing himself up to spend his time and ample funds to help elect a new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans to Congress.

So, who is this dude?

Thiel, 54, co-founded PayPal and Palantir, a data-harvesting software company. He was also the first major outside investor in Facebook.
He obsessively and secretly funded a campaign to bankrupt Gawker Media after the news site outed Thiel as gay in a 2007 blog post.
He has backed a handful of GOP presidential bids, including Ron Paul, Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump.
His Trump pivot lost him some public support in Silicon Valley, but he remains a power player in tech. Thiel eventually served on Trump's transition team.
Lately, Thiel's been propping up Senate hopefuls JD Vance of Ohio and Blake Masters of Arizona. Both Vance and Masters have taken a hard line on immigration, railed against critical race theory, criticized Big Tech and called for fewer restrictions on gun ownership.
Masters, Vance and Thiel have all criticized the American university system, despite being educated at places such as Stanford and Yale Law School.

Why it matters

Thiel's alignment with Trump and Trump acolytes may make it harder for establishment Republicans to counter the more extreme elements within the party, said David Karpf, a political scientist at George Washington University. Thiel's immense wealth — Bloomberg estimates his net worth at over $8 billion — enables him to threaten more moderate Republican candidates with well-funded primary challengers.

Key quote: "The future of American government hinges on how the GOP comes to deal with Trumpism," says Karpf. "This is pretty clearly yet more evidence that it's going to be a long time before the Republican party has space for people who are willing to contradict Trump."

My colleagues Clare Duffy and Brian Fung have more on Thiel's political aspirations.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

😷 New York will lift its statewide mask-or-vaccine requirement for indoor businesses starting Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

🚗 Uber's revenue in the fourth quarter beat expectations, growing 83% year-over-year to $5.8 billion.

📺 Disney shares surged 9% in after-hours trading on better-than-expected subscriber numbers for its streaming service.

🎧 Traffic to the cancellation page for Spotify Premium has jumped in recent weeks as a backlash has built over the company's support for podcaster Joe Rogan.

📱 Samsung unveiled its next-generation Galaxy S smartphones, including the Ultra S22, which will look and feel a bit like the Galaxy Note (the "phablet" that never quite rebounded from a massive recall in 2016 after reports of battery fires.)