Crypto.com already has a deal with the Aston Martin F1 Team but now they are expanding their presence with a $100 million deal to get top branding slots during the new sprint qualifying rounds starting at the British GP.
This new deal is a big deal for the crypto market as F1 is a very popular sport and now this new deal, Crypto.com will have trackside billboard real estate for the rest of the 2021 season.
Crypto.com first gained entry into Formula 1 when they announced a partnership with the Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team. Interestingly enough, this collaboration produced NFTs for the team’s first moments on track as Aston Martin.
Crypto.com CEO, Steve Kalifowitz, said of the collaboration,
“We worked closely with [Aston Martin Racing] on content creation, strategy, and bringing to our customers, uncontroversially, valuable content. People were able to buy collectibles, the first videos and moments of Sebastian [Vettel] and Lance [Stroll] driving the new car…. Our customers will get special access to Aston Martin and F1 in general. Will those be extended from the NFTs directly? Those are the things that are still under discussion. But the whole industry is still experimenting, figuring out what works for different properties.”
Kalifowitz is excited about the partnership because it lends some credibility to the ever-maligned crypto market,
“You wouldn’t have imagined two years ago that a company like Aston Martin in Formula One joined Crypto.com in a partnership. And where crypto was shunned earlier because they weren’t sure about it, people are embracing it now and seeing it is good technology and can solve a lot of problems when applied properly.”
People don’t really trust cryptocurrency and this is mostly due to the idea of it being a ‘bubble’ that is going to burst at any time. In fact, there have been numerous reports recently that the crypto market is facing a massive crash at the time of writing. But Kalifowitz says that cryptocurrency is beyond that point and is entering a new phase of growth,
“After the dot com bubble burst, that’s when we got social media and biggest companies of today, Facebook, Twitter and others. In those years, a lot was built and the internet matured. You’re seeing a lot of that today with cryptocurrency… Crypto had its bubble moment in 2017 and then people forgot about it for a while… The difference between now and in 2017, is there are institutions in the game and they’re less jittery than retail. It’s a lot more sophisticated and a lot of neigh-sayers in 2017 have come around to it.”
Aston Martin themselves have a forward thinking approach to the partnership and indeed the entire crypto market. CMO at Aston Martin Conizant Formula 1 Team, Rob Bloom, said of cryptocurrency,
“Nobody can accurately model these things, but it feels like we’re probably at the same point on the curve as we were 15 years ago with a brand like YouTube. From virtually nothing, it’s grown into the world’s most dominant video content brand. And it’s all entirely digital. Where will these brands be in another 15 years? We don’t exactly know, but they’re certainly not going away.”
It should be interesting to see how the crypto market develops in the coming years and if Aston Martin prove to be right or not.