All Points South for crypto-backed festivals
“Hedge Fund Festivals Kill Electronic Music” might not be the catchiest title for an EP, but it’s hard to disagree with the sentiment.
Unfortunately, artists Blawan and The Analogue Cops never responded to my request for an interview about the financialization of fandom back in 2018. And they probably weren’t in attendance at Saturday’s All points east — a London day party organized by the American conglomerate Anschutz Entertainment Group and sponsored this year by the crypto platform Luno.
Music fans who don’t already know may be disappointed to learn that The Anschutz Corporation (which owns AEG, which also runs Coachella) gave $75,000 to the Republican Bar Association five days after Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to Rolling Stone.
RAGA was in campaign mode even on its day of triumph, appealing on June 24 for donations to “fight the Democrats’ pro-abortion agenda”. The Anschutz Corporation told Rolling Stone that owner Philip Anschutz “believes in a woman’s right to choose and does not support the reversal of Roe”.
Regardless, AEG seems to like crypto almost as much as it does the Republican Party, to which it has donated sporadically since 2014. In November, The Staples Center in Los Angeles, which AEG owns and operates, was renamed the Crypto.com Arena.
Luno’s sponsorship of All Points East suggests that the crypto industry’s advertising blitzkrieg has yet to die a complete death. Here, Luno has form. The Barry Silbert-backed platform was last year forced to change “misleading” posters plastered around London with the slogan “If you’re seeing Bitcoin on the Underground, it’s time to buy”.
By AM Readers, meanwhile, are encouraged almost daily by Silbert’s Digital Currency Group to become “Bitcoin Pioneers”. “Thanks to the support of Luno, ‘if you do, you’ll get £500 worth of the token’ to share with newbies [and help] they get going.”
Luno takes its responsibility towards its customers extremely seriously. In late July, the group wrote in a blog post that “while no one is able to predict where the market will go next, one thing investors can do is to use a trusted crypto platform”:
The key to this is to ensure that their funds actually exist and are accounted for. That’s why every quarter at Luno we publish our Proof of Reserve report.
Luno has partnered with Mazars, a leading international audit, tax and advisory firm, to conduct the Q2 Proof of Reserves audit. This Proof of Reserve report gives you peace of mind that Luno has your cryptocurrency safely stored for you to use whenever you want.
Mazars conducts tests on the vast majority of these holdings to prove that the cryptocurrencies you see in your Luno wallet actually exist.
It will be the same Mazars that was criticized by the UK Audit Authority last month for the “unacceptable” quality of its audits. “Peace of mind” indeed for some All points east day trippers inebriated enough to be tempted by Luno into crypto. Luno, AEG and Mazars did not respond in time for publication of this article.
