What’s the place of celebrities in crypto?

FTX announced that tennis star Naomi Osaka will become a brand ambassador for the crypto exchange. She will get an equity stake and be compensated in crypto as well.

Why should we care?
Osaka joins a long list of sports stars and actors who have become crypto-evangelists—from Tom Brady, to Kim Kardashian, to Paris Hilton, to Larry David. Celebrity endorsements can suggest to followers that these financial products are safe and legitimate ways to make money. (Maybe not Kardashian-level wealth, but still a boon.) Actor and crypto naysayer Ben McKenzie—yes, the former teen actor from The OC—has written extensively about celebrity partnerships with crypto companies. “Celebrities are encouraging their fans to gamble on speculative, unproven investments that may soon see a major regulatory crackdown, if not an outright implosion of the market,” he wrote. “We’ve been here before.” He cited the crash of initial coin offerings in 2018, which eventually saw the co-founder of Centra coin jailed for fraud. Among Centra’s celebrity partners were boxer Floyd Mayweather and producer/rapper DJ Khaled, who were both fined by the SEC for failing to disclose that they were paid to promote the cryptocurrency. McKenzie thinks celebrity partnerships are not about normalizing crypto-based projects, but about getting rich off pump-and-dump schemes. Kim Kardashian promoted Ethereum Max, for instance, which lost most of its value after Kardashian’s Instagram ad for the coin. “Crypto and blockchain technology may yet have important roles to play, but the industry executives, venture capitalists, and, yes, the rich and famous people pushing these products haven’t earned your trust—or your money.”