Zero digital currency ads in Super Bowl LVII—FTX blowup to blame

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Advertising sales data for this year’s Super Bowl LVII shows that there will be “zero representation” for the digital currency industry.

While the roughly 100 million Super Bowl viewers were subjected to ads from Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), FTX, Crypto.com, and eToro in 2022, this year, they’ll see none whatsoever as these companies make cutbacks amidst a digital currency winter.

Mark Evans, executive vice president of ad sales for Fox Sports, told the Associated Press that two companies had ads “booked and done” and two others were “on the one-yard line,” but in the wake of the FTX implosion that brought the industry to its knees, the deals weren’t completed.

This year, Super Bowl fans will have to do without chasing Coinbase QR codes around the screen and will have to settle for ads for alcohol, SUVs, packaged food, and movies.

Is the digital currency speculative frenzy over?

As a CoinGeek reporter, I try to distance myself from the term ‘crypto’ when talking to people about what I do. I’ve been told countless times in the last year that ‘crypto’ is a scam. These people’s opinions, combined with this insight into a Super Bowl advertising freeze, make for an interesting question: is ‘crypto’ dead?

After LUNA blew up and took down Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Celsius Network, Voyager Digital, and others, I thought we might see the beginning of the end. When Sam Bankman-Fried was led back onto U.S. soil in handcuffs, I was virtually certain.

While I wouldn’t rule out another pump or two for the thousands of useless coins that exchanges like Binance and Kraken list (after all, Tether still exists), it’s looking more likely that the speculative mania is behind us and the era of true utility is emerging from the wreckage.

As regulators continue to clamp down, more criminals are hunted down and arrested, and enforcement of established laws heat up to end the ‘Wild West’ era that we’ve seen so far, I’m sure that, even if there is another widespread bull market, it will be much tamer than previous ones.

Finally, with the greedfest in the rearview mirror, serious inventors and investors may be able to see the real use cases using blockchain technology and the inherent technical superiority of Satoshi’s original design—BSV.

What will Super Bowl LXVII ads look like?

Perhaps in the future, Super Bowl viewers will see ads for useful blockchain-powered applications rather than bucket shops encouraging them to risk their hard-earned money speculating on worthless tokens.

Maybe in 2033, the 100-million strong Super Bowl audience will see ads inviting them to play in the Haste Arcade and earn ongoing micropayments or to create an account on Twetch where they can get paid to post on social media. Perhaps CentBee will advertise, letting America’s hard-working immigrants know that they can send remittances home for near-zero fees, or CertiHash will show the world how Sentinel Node can make their networks more secure.

Truthfully, I’m not sure what the Super Bowl ads will look like a decade in the future, but at a going rate of $6-7 million for a 30-second slot, I’m confident they won’t be for bucket shops that provide no real value to anyone. If digital currencies have any mainstream representation a decade from now, they will be for applications that improve people’s lives.

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