Larry Davis and LeBron James Super Bowl Ads for Crypto

The crypto economy got the redcarpet treatment at Super Bowl LVI.

The biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, looking to demystify their businesses for tens of millions of Americans, secured commercials during the big game, which cost up to $7 million per 30second spot. Some enlisted famous faces.

Larry David appeared as a clueless time traveler who turns up his nose at great innovations (The wheel? Eh. The lightbulb? "Can I be honest? ... it stinks"). Tagline: "Don't be like Larry. Don't miss  the next big event." LeBron James later learned to take risks in

Many expected big names to support cryptographic and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in big games. Ahead of the match, cryptocurrency trading platform Binance released a video featuring  Miami Heat's Jimmy Butler and music artist J. Balvin, warning viewers that celebrities do not support crypto.

“On February 13th, you will hear celebrities talking about getting into crypto,” Butler said. “But they don't know you or your finances. Only you can. The star advertisement is the latest example of the entertainment industry's growing interest in all things blockchain. Over the past year, most actors, musicians, and athletes have been talking about digital currencies and NFTs. An NFT is a unique digital record that proves ownership of items tracked on a digital ledger.

NEW YORK, NY, JUNE 4: An NFT entitled "SHIFT//" by Mad Dog Jones is on display at the press premiere of  Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale scheduled for June 4, 2021 at Sotheby's  in New York. . 2 (Photo courtesy of Cindy Ord/Getty Images)  Why do celebrities buy million dollar monkey cartoons? Movie Studios explained that the NFT is auctioning off crypto collectibles to promote new movies. Musicians release songs, albums and memorabilia as tokens to give fans  bonus material. Theme park designers are talking about bringing famous characters and fantasy worlds to the metaverse. DJs are planning completely virtual concerts and parties.

And of course celebrities also support cryptocurrencies. Last year Matt Damon appeared in a Crypto.com ad comparing electronic currency investment to nautical exploration and space travel, with the slogan “Fortune favors the brave.” Paris Hilton showed off her

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Reese Witherspoon has touted crypto assets on Twitter. “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity,” the “Big Little Lies” star tweeted in January.

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Critics have balked at the spectacle of the rich and famous encouraging viewers to gamble on a risky and speculative market that has been plagued by grifters. Skeptics say the cryptocurrency and NFT craze has primarily benefited wealthy early adopters — the true believers — who could afford to get in early.

Analysts see clear parallels in the crypto space to the dotcom bubble. That earlier hype cycle reached a pop culture apex at the 2000 Super Bowl. That game featured ads by companies like Pets.com, which quickly collapsed.

“My problem is, when 98% of these NFTs will go bust in the next couple of years, it will just crush a lot of the small investors,” said Anindya Ghose, a professor at New York University`s Stern School of Business. “If you`re Matt Damon or Paris Hilton, you can afford to lose 5% of the net worth. But for many small retail investors, 5% or 10% of your net worth is a nontrivial loss.”

THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON Episode 1590 Pictured: (lr) Businesswoman Paris Hilton during an interview with host Jimmy Fallon on Monday, January 24, 2022 (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

TECHNOLOGY

Jimmy Fallon hyped his Bored Ape NFTs on `The Tonight Show.` Conflict of interest?

Alisters repping brands and products is nothing new, of course. But selling crypto and NFTs is more awkward than pitching for typical consumer goods, because the concepts are still foreign to many consumers. It`s not quite the same as pitching for potato chips and energy drinks, said Columbia Business School professor R.A. Farrokhnia.

“How are you going to explain nonfungible tokens in a way that`s understandable and portrays some of the risks attached to it?” Farrokhnia asked.

Broad skepticism hasn`t stopped ambitious artists from experimenting in the growing crypto universe.

DJ and producer Steve Aoki, one of the most vocal proponents of NFTs and the possibilities of blockchain technologies in entertainment, has set up an online platform dubbed A0K1VERSE for holders of Steve Aoki NFTs.

He describes the project as a digital version of a membershipbased social club, like Soho House, with different tiers of experiences, including access to collectibles, concert tickets and virtual performances. At a certain membership level, fans could collaborate with him on music, he said.

"I call it the preseason,” Aoki said. “There`s a lot of different ways to think about where we`re going. The exciting part now, for creators like myself, is that we can actually start building the architecture.”

Entertainers and companies are trying to learn and prepare for a future when audiences live more of their lives in virtual worlds, said Adam Friedman, an executive at Creative Artists Agency.

“We`re well past the notion of anything in the space being a cash grab,” Friedman said. “It`s about what makes the most sense strategically for the client, their business and their brand.”

Some in the industry think there`s potential to mine NFTs for movie and TV show ideas, treating them as intellectual property, similar to comic books, video games and toy lines. Last year, CAA signed Jenkins the Valet, a digital character created by Tally Labs, for representation in books, film, TV and podcasts.

“At the end of the day, it`s IP, and if the IP is compelling, and clients and the market find it compelling, there`s a lot of opportunity,” Friedman said.

Kat Graham, an actress and artist who makes music under the name Toro Gato, released her latest album exclusively as a series of NFTs. Graham said she sees the format as a way to circumvent an exploitative record label system.

Graham worked with the NFT marketplace YellowHeart, which helped the rock band Kings of Leon release an NFT version of its record in one of the first major uses of the format by a mainstream artist.

Graham said selling NFT albums gives her a more direct connection to fans than streaming, which smaller artists have despised for years because of paltry royalties.

“It feels like we have our own club, like we have our own community,” she said. “I hope that this space will open up more artists.”

NFTs started to pick up steam during the COVID19 pandemic amid the rise in popularity of physical collectibles, such as baseball cards, as alternative investments.

But the newness and volatility of the crypto economy has made it a hotbed for swindlers and intellectual property theft. Early this month, a website called HitPiece allegedly auctioned off music NFTs without artists` permission, infuriating musicians and leading the Recording Industry Assn. of America to call the platform “little more than a scam operation.”

A class action lawsuit last month accused Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather of artificially pumping up the price of the cryptocurrency EthereumMax. The coin lost about 97% of its value in seven months, leading critics to call it a “pump and dump” hustle.

The Department of Justice this month charged a married couple — one of whom moonlighted as a YouTube rapper — in a $4.5billion crypto moneylaundering scheme.

These incidents have damaged the  reputation of the industry in the eyes of the general public. Some believers recognize the problem, but see it as a natural part of the work in progress. “There will be bubbles, there will be bad actors, there will be scams,” said Jeremy S. Goldman,  Los Angeles partner at blockchain law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz. Questions. "But it doesn't change the fact that at the heart of this is a surprising new innovation that can bring tremendous benefits to new  and established creators."

Studios  tried to prevent artists from selling NFT versions of their work featuring Marvel and DC superheroes. Miramax sued Quentin

Tarantino for putting up a Pulp Fiction handwritten script for auction. Tarantino's lawyers argued that the director had the right to sell the pages as NFTs under the original contract.

Samples of three images from a collection of NFT packages called "Satoshi the  Creator - Genesis" by  José Delbo, a cartoonist.

ENTERTAINMENT AND ARTS

Who Can Sell Wonder Woman NFTs? The man who drew her or DC Comics?

Meanwhile, film studios and television networks are developing their own NFTs.

Warner Bros. Prior to the new movie, we launched tokens based on the Matrix and Space Jam franchises. AMC Networks has contracted production company NFT Orange Comet to tokenize The Walking Dead computer animation clip. And Sony Pictures and AMC Theater have created the Spider-Man NFT for AMC movie ticket subscription program members and investors.

Sony Pictures NFT auctioned 10 Ghostbusters vignettes  on the OpenSea marketplace prior to launch to promote Ghostbusters:

Afterlife. Studio Culver City has also launched thousands of digitally collectable MiniPufts (little marshmallow StayPuft  characters) to appeal to  more casual consumers.

“We`re in a phase where you have these crypto whales and these people that understand the technology that are buying these, but there`s not a lot of those people,” said Jamie Stevens, Sony Pictures` head of consumer products and licensing. “So we really wanted to create an opportunity for our fans to be able to own a piece of it.”

Some studios also see an opportunity to take what they`ve done in physical themepark attractions and bring that into the digital world.

Jenefer Brown, who runs live and locationbased entertainment for Santa Monica film and TV studio Lionsgate, envisions a world where fans can enter the world of the “John Wick” action franchise and book a room at the Continental Hotel, the action series` neutral refuge for the criminal underworld.

“We`ve dusted off concepts that we`ve come up with, from a physical standpoint, that just couldn`t be built for a variety of reasons, that absolutely could be built in a digital environment,” Brown said.

Buying NFTs is complicated, and experts predict that more consumers will embrace it only as the technology becomes easier to use and understand.

The market is now overrun with capital inflows and many analysts expect it to contract. But the technology itself isn't going anywhere. “NFTs aren't going anywhere,” Goldman said. “As with technology, they will evolve.”