Larry David and other celebrities, including LeBron James, were mouthpieces for Big Crypto in the Super Bowl ads this year.
AsSlatepointed outearlier this twelvemonth , Damon was hardly the first celebrity to shill for cryptocurrencies — Alec Baldwin , Neil Patrick Harris , Tom Brady , and Spike Lee have lent their cred to the digital coin mart — but he was arguably the most notable . It turns out , Damon ’s commercial message was only the beginning in what has become a celeb - indorsement gold Benjamin Rush . In January , it feel like every famous actor or realness adept was dropping an NFT ( which stands for non - fungible token ) , withthis clipof Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton discuss their digital artistic production going viral for its Verhoeven - ian eeriness . Then , during the Super Bowl , the crypto - craze claimed even more A - listers .
First , there was the celeb - less ad for CoinBase , which featured a QR - code bouncing around the concealment for its intact runtime . ( Thead was reportedly popularenough to doss the app during the programme . ) Then there was a Cyrpto.com advertising featuring LeBron James talking to a youthful CG translation of himself , again hit the Damon substance about portion favour the brave . peculiar that future tense LeBron did n’t distinguish young LeBron that he ’d be in a crypto advertizement one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .
But the great " get " was the appearing of Larry David in an ad , the first he ’s ever been in , for the Bahamas - based FTX Trading , which was launch in 2019 and was valued at$32 billionback in January . In the advertising , David riffs on his familiar cantankerousCurb Your Enthusiasmpersona by playing skeptic to a number of innovation throughout the course of human history , include the wheel , the toilet , and the idle bulb . The advertizing stop on a slightly ominous notation of caution : " Do n’t be like Larry . Do n’t lack out on the next big thing . "
Larry David starring in an ad for crypto exchange FTX|FTX
The ad play into the widespread agnosticism about the crypto market place . In aNew York Timesarticlechronicling the making of the commercial , music director Jeff Schaffer , a longtime David collaborator who has ferment onSeinfeldandCurb , revealed that he does n’t on the nose understand crypto either and was not make up in a digital up-to-dateness . " That ’s what I should have done — then I would understand it , " he jest to theTimes . " Maybe . Or I would simply recede it all . "
I sleep with , I be intimate : How dare these celebrity undermine the sanctity of the pure art of the Super Bowl commercial message ? David and James were barely the only sensation garner a presumptively monumental check to help upgrade a product . Scarlet Johannson and Colin Jost drop the ball on their relationship in an ad for Amazon’sall - know helper Alexa , Matthew McConaughey donned a blank space suit of clothes toextol the virtues of Sales Force , and , in one of the more acclaimed commercial message of the night , two actor fromThe Sopranosreunited toconvince you to buy a auto . A massive celebration of money , contender , and violence , the Super Bowl as a dada - culture result inescapably has a dystopian set . But something about the crypto advertizement feel specially barren , right-hand ?
Some have compared the rush of crypto advertizement to thedot - com Super Bowl of 2000 , when soon - to - crash sites like Pets.com bet big on pricey ad blank . At least those ads had fishy mascot . So many view of the celebrity - drive crypto securities industry have a pro forma caliber , like a transcript of a copy of a copy . Even with a performer as funny and magical as Larry David at the center , there ’s still a dead - eyed dreariness to the entire endeavor . They must be storing the actual joke in a digital wallet somewhere and they forgot the key .
