Tag: cryptocurrency exchange

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Red Bull Racing Inks $150 Million Deal with Bybit

Red Bull Racing has entered a US$150 million partnership with cryptocurrency exchange platform Bybit, claimed to be largest per annum crypto venture in international sport. While the figure is yet to be made official, the deal is set to hold for three years.

Red Bull Enters Crypto Big League

Bybit will become the Red Bull team’s exclusive and principal cryptocurrency exchange partner. Red Bull’s media release proclaims it to be “the single largest per-annum cryptocurrency venture yet seen in international sport”.

Bybit is set to join the racing team to promote “crypto-literacy” and green technology growth. Beyond branding on the team’s vehicles, Bybit will also become Red Bull’s fan token issuance partner. The team’s CEO Christian Horner states Red Bull intends to “[enliven] the fan experience in F1 through digital innovation”.

This news comes only weeks after the announcement that tech giant Oracle had signed a title deal with Red Bull Racing worth US$695 million.

Crypto Shells Out on Sports Sponsorships

Oracle Red Bull is not the first team to agree to a million-dollar deal. Earlier this month, English Premier League football team Manchester United signed a US$27 million per annum deal with blockchain platform Tezos.

Meanwhile, last month the Australian Football League struck a five-year deal with crypto.com for A$25 million. The deal will cover both the men’s and women’s competitions, a move inspired by Australian women’s higher-than-average willingness to take up crypto.

By Lauren Claxton, Crypto News Guest Author

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Coinbase Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Coinbase’s $15 Million QR Code Super Bowl Ad Crashes Site Within a Minute

Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad, basically a US$15 million QR code, saw its platform crash within a minute during the February 14 NFL final playoff. The simplistic, but initially successful, marketing technique drew thousands of Super Bowl spectators to the site, which was ill-equipped to handle the influx:

The ad itself was simply a colourful QR code bouncing around the screen, akin to the ‘DVD video’ logo. Scanning the code took new users to a platform where they could sign up for US$5 worth of free bitcoin – with the deal available until the following day. Not every viewer was able to get that far, however:

Coinbase’s chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee took to Twitter to explain that the platform “saw more traffic than [it had] ever encountered” and that the issue had since been rectified. The crash lasted no longer than an hour; long enough, however, for Coinbase’s exposure to backfire. Coinbase shares took a 5 percent dive as many expressed their frustrations across social media.

The US$15 million ad was live only for a single minute timeslot.

Previous Coinbase Troubles

While Coinbase’s Super Bowl outage was the result of positive consumer interaction, the exchange has suffered previous negative performance issues. In late 2021, hackers stole crypto from 6,000 of the exchange’s users. It was suggested that the hackers had managed to gain access to personal user information in the lead-up, likely from external sources. However, a bug in the exchange’s multi-factor authentication was the cause.

Earlier last year, Coinbase had another significant crash that prevented investor attempts to purchase. Bitcoin and Ethereum had dipped in value, which saw a sudden rise in buyer interest. The platform’s inability to handle the response saw its stock price dip accordingly.

By Lauren Claxton, Crypto News Guest Author