Here’s how many crypto ads will air during Super Bowl LVII

2022 was the year of the “Crypto Bowl,” the quirky little nickname given to Super Bowl LVI because of all the cryptocurrency exchanges running expensive ads during the game.

So, how many crypto commercials will air during Super Bowl LVII this Sunday?

Zero. Not a single cryptocurrency company is advertising in the US during the 2023 big game.

According to Fox Sports’ executive vice president of ad sales Mark Evans, that wasn’t always the case. Evans says, according to The Associate Press,(Opens in a new tab) that two cryptocurrency advertisers had booked seats for the Super Bowl and two others were “on the one-yard line.” Then, in November, after an already tumultuous summer for the industry, FTX, once one of the largest crypto exchanges, collapsed. Soon after, the planned crypto Super Bowl commercials also fell apart.

“There is zero representation in that category on the day at all,” Evans said of crypto advertising on Sunday.

After the crypto skyrocketed past its most hardcore advocates in 2021, many crypto companies wanted to continue expanding into the mainstream and draw in more regular people to invest. With the Super Bowl being the most watched annual sporting event in the entire world, it seemed like an obvious opportunity to do just that. Crypto companies like Coinbase, Crypto.com, eToro and FTX all paid millions of dollars for a single ad slot during the 2022 big game.

Just a few months after these ads aired, the entire crypto market collapsed after stablecoin Terra failed, causing a domino effect that brought down a number of other crypto companies. Then, in November, just 9 months after the Larry David ad aired during the Super Bowl, FTX applied for bankruptcy.

And the other Super Bowl crypto advertisers aren’t that popular either.

Crypto.com, the company behind the “Fortune favors the brave” Super Bowl ads featuring LeBron James and Matt Damon, temporarily laid off(Opens in a new tab) 20 percent of its employees in June. Then, just last month, the crypto exchange was shut down another(Opens in a new tab) 20 percent of the workers.

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eToro, the crypto advertiser that ran a commercial featuring the song “Fly Me to the Moon,” a nod to crypto advocates’ belief that the prices of these digital currencies will only continue to rise, let go(Opens in a new tab) of 100 employees in July. The company too scrapped(Opens in a new tab) plans to make public.

America’s largest crypto exchange, Coinbase, was the tribute for its Super Bowl commercial featuring a QR code bouncing around a screen for a cryptocurrency. However, Coinbase faced its own challenges resulting(Opens in a new tab) in two separate rounds of layoffs in June and just last month, affecting 20 percent of the workforce each time.

However, we should note that even if cryptocurrencies will be absent, will blockchain won’t be completely beaten by the Super Bowl this year. Web3 game company Limit Break plans(Opens in a new tab) to run a Super Bowl ad that will give away 10,000 of its DigiDaigaku Dragon NFTs for free to viewers. There is also a Canadian crypto exchange called BitBuy planning(Opens in a new tab) to run an ad during the game, but it will not air in the US

Regardless, companies will be eager to appear in postgame recaps of the funniest Super Bowl ads, so if you’re looking for a slightly safer investment this Super Bowl, bet on a couple commercials that make fun of last year’s crypto blitz. .