Start, Silverstone, 2020

Cryptocurrency platform to sponsor F1’s new Sprint races

2021 F1 season

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Formula 1 has announced cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com as the partner for its new series of Sprint races which will begin at next month’s British Grand Prix.

The service, which claims to have over 10 million users, will also become a global partner of Formula 1 and its branding will appear at all remaining rounds of the championship. It has also been designated the series’ official cryptocurrency sponsor and NFT [non-fungible token] partner.

The new ‘sprint’ races will be held at three rounds of the championship this year. Following the format’s debut at Silverstone, further events will be held at Monza and one further circuit, likely to be Interlagos in Brazil or the Circuit of the Americas in the USA.

Cryptocurrencies have attracted controversy due to the large quantities of energy involved in the processing of transactions. Much of the energy comes from non-renewable sources.

Formula 1 aims to be a net zero producer of carbon emissions by 2030. Crypto.com has claimed it will become “carbon negative” by late 2023 and aims to present itself as the face of “clean crypto”.

In addition to its new branding presence, Crypto.com’s co-foudner and CEO Kris Marszalek said it will “present a brand new award” from the Belgian Grand Prix, the first race after F1’s summer break.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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57 comments on “Cryptocurrency platform to sponsor F1’s new Sprint races”

  1. So no Bitcoin then.

  2. Sounds like Rich Energy Drinks – are they getting sponsored in actual cash or crypto?

    1. Crypto.com is a lot more legit than Rich Energy. They have an actual product for one.

      1. Coventry Climax
        1st July 2021, 1:18

        I don’t think money should be a ‘product’, even if that’s exactly what it’s become over the years.
        The crypto-scam is just another thing a handful of people will get very rich from, at the cost of a lot of others.

    2. @dbradock I was thinking the exact same thing.

    3. If they haven’t been paid in crypto this is more of a negative campaign. Imagine, you promote crypto currency, but you don’t believe in it enough to get paid in it and demand “real” money instead. If it’s not good enough for them, maybe it’s not good enough for me. In any case, it’s not like F1 sponsors mean anything to me as a viewer, because if they did I’d become a degenerate smoker, gambler, alcoholic and also spend my entire life trying to find a can of rich energy to buy.

  3. Given the negative perception around crypto among IT field(shortages, scalping and ewaste generation) and overall how damaging these are towards enviornment(Co2 emmisions) these sponsorships directly conflict with “green” initiative that F1 fraternity have been virtue signalling about. So overall this is a typical hypocracy of F1.

    1. +1. My thoughts exactly.

    2. If you think electronic currencies are even a fraction as wasteful as traditional fiat which utilises paper, plastics, logistics, transportation (vans, trucks, jets, lorries), POWER (number of ATM’s worldwide anyone?) and more then you have bought into the old money narrative to keep control of your money. Sad.

      1. Ever heard of electronic payments? I’ve lived without a single banknote or coin for at least 3 years. And all that for a fraction of the energy consumption of bitcoins.

      2. @RB13 Have you really thought this through, or are you just typing whatever pops into your head?

        1. @ferrox-glideh – exactly what I was thinking!

  4. Hilarious, crypto carbon negative.. who are they kidding? Crypto is giganticly energy inefficient.

    The whole carbon neutral/negative thing is a joke. It’s not about improving yourself, it’s about buying ‘green energy’, so you look good on the balance sheet. You can be ‘carbon neutral’ while flying around a private jet each day. Just buy a big lot of trees and claim half a wind park, and boom, you’re carbon neutral.

    1. Everything corporates do is about looking good on a balance sheet…

    2. The fact that the likes of VAG can “buy” carbon credits from Tesla to “offset” it’s carbon production, then make BS claims about how much it’s reducing it’s carbon footprint is lunacy.

  5. All the comments so far, spot on. This can be seen from a mile away. Who do the deep pockets in charge of F1 think they are kidding?

  6. Looking forward to watching the “Formula 1 DogeCoin Much Passing Very Entertainment Sprint Qualifying in respect of the Formula 1 [Insert name of company pretending its green] [Insert highest bidding country name] Grand Prix.” It rolls off the tongue…

  7. Having every part of the weekend & various parts of the tv graphics sponsored is very….. American.

    It’s just further proof of the real reason they are doing the gimmick races. It’s not about improving the show, It’s not about improving the racing…. It’s all about how they can squeeze more money out of it. I guarantee that ticket prices for the gimmick race weekends will go up should they end up forcing the gimmick through more permanently because the ‘grand slam weekends’ will be pushed as been bigger & more special than others & therefore something you should have to pay more to attend.

    The American/nascar-ification of F1 is well underway unfortunately for those of us who dislike the American way of presenting, promoting sport (And as i’ve said before I say that as an American).

    1. pastaman (@)
      29th June 2021, 13:05

      Advertising and F1 have always gone hand in hand, this is nothing new

  8. Super Duper Ultra Mega Hyper Sprint Qualifying offered to you by Crypto.com

    1. Can’t wait for NBC to broadcast F1 again

    2. “Let’s go racing boys n gurls”

  9. The worst thing about this is that this awful idea is still happening…

  10. Derek Edwards
    29th June 2021, 12:44

    Overly complicated and difficult to understand entity that wastes vast amounts of energy and makes a few people very rich indeed sponsors overly complicated and difficult to understand entity that wastes vast amounts of energy and makes a few people very rich indeed.

    Seems like a perfect match.

  11. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    29th June 2021, 13:17

    Crypto? Well there goes any illusion of F1’s ‘green’ credentials.

  12. I guess this was the test Ross Brawn talked about. No way they are going to let Sprint Races be a one season trial when they can sponsor them.

  13. Crypto sponsorship? Worse than tobacco.

    1. Exactly right!

      1. Filters, all you need are the right filters. Then it all looks great.
        The 10 micron Ponzi-screen will do the job.

  14. You can really tell the focus is on improving racing.

  15. Man, they sold Vettel first outing video on Aston Martin for $10 millions.

    1. I understand how crypto works and why things like Bitcoin might have value, but the whole NFT boom makes absolutely no sense to me.

  16. Brazil will get cancelled, so COTA probably.
    Pirelli is, of course, the event title sponsor, so the S/F straight will feature the Pirelli logo and yellow background color (like last season’s British GP) rather than those of the Cryptocurrency platform.

  17. Wasn’t Jean Todt going on about not wanting to be controversial just a few weeks ago?
    This decision directly contradicts their supposed green initiatives, as a blockchain transaction uses at least a 100 times the electricity as a normal credit card transaction. It continues to amaze me how out of touch those in charge of F1 can be.
    I guess the oligarchs love it.

    1. RandomMallard (@)
      2nd July 2021, 10:26

      @ferrox-glideh This decision will have been made by the promoters (I.e. FOM and Brawn/Domenicali) rather than Todt and the FIA, as Bernie got a very very long lease on promotion rights that transfered to Liberty when they bought him out.

      1. Right you are, cheers!

  18. I know Ross & co are keen to repeat the line that the 3 sprints we have this year are just a ‘trial’, But I sense an inevitability in them been adopted more widely regardless of how the 3 trials go as it’s becoming increasingly obvious that they are been done for commercial rather than sporting reasons.

  19. Given the 22 cars are going to be so different, what exactly will anyone “learn” from this year’s sprints? Why hasn’t anyone raised this point with Brawn?

  20. Good idea given the new Netflix generation fans lol

  21. Broccoliface
    29th June 2021, 16:50

    Lotta nocoiners in the replies

    1. Lots of sane people in the replies.

      There’s no evidence yet that crypto is anything other than snake oil. If/when it grows into something other than a speculation platform, sane people will begin to use it.

      1. To be fair, crypto is a great way for criminals to launder money.

  22. Since the beginning, F1 has always stressed that these sprint races (I notice the term ‘Sprint Qualifying’ has disappeared: that’s a bad sign) are just a trial, and if they don’t work they will be scrapped. Getting crypto currency to be the official partner, for which a lot of money will be involved, suggests otherwise. These sprint races are here to stay, whether they work or not. What a shame.

    1. RandomMallard (@)
      29th June 2021, 20:03

      @f1frog Knowing a (very small) bit about the current state of the Cryptocurrency market, I wouldn’t be surprised if the sponsor isn’t around next season. It looks pretty likely to crash soon…

    2. RandomMallard (@)
      2nd July 2021, 10:36

      Also @f1frog They are still referring to it as Sprint Qualifying on the official timings on the F1 website/app, so suspect that’s still their official name. I suspect Keith has just chosen to call them Sprint Races here instead.

  23. “Cryptocurrencies have attracted controversy due to the large quantities of energy involved in the processing of transactions. Much of the energy comes from non-renewable sources.”

    All of our energy comes from non-renewable sources. Period. It takes 100 tons of coking coal to make a wind turbine and there is currently a mining boom going on in Western Australia to dig up all the raw materials needed to make solar panels and batteries. We are transitioning from coal to lithium and rare earth minerals.

    1. If you want to be really pedantic you could say that the sun, wind and tides aren’t really renewable. As they’ll all run out eventually.

      But that would be silly too.

      1. Coventry Climax
        1st July 2021, 1:38

        Talk about silly. It’s really irrelevant how much energy you use, or how inefficiently you use it, if you don’t make the relation to the number of people doing it. It’s a pity china dropped the one-child policy, instead of other countries introducing it too. Yeah yeah, there’s enough food if we share it all. But we don’t. Never have, never will.

  24. It’s not only about energy and carbon neutrality target.

    Crypto is gambling. And IMO all gambling ads should be banned. If a sport needs sponsors whose products/services are harmful for the society (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling), that sport has a problem.

    What is the next step? On-demand liveries for sex services?

    1. Coventry Climax
      1st July 2021, 1:41

      After the grid girls were banned? Oh well, given FIA’s and Liberty’s hypocrisy, I wouldn’t be surprised.

      1. Fair point!

    2. RandomMallard (@)
      2nd July 2021, 10:30

      @sugoi As much as I dislike cryptocurrency, I wouldn’t go as far as calling it gambling. It is pretty close to any other stock market or stock exchange, although the market is a bit more volatile. I think a better system would involve a sliding scale of how much you’re allowed to advertise depending on your carbon emissions (i.e. the lower your emissions, the more you’re allowed to advertise)

      1. The way people think and talk about crypto (you’re already late, join before it’s too late, there’ risk but gains are ludicrous, you can get rich with no effort, etc.) follow the very same thought structure that scams follow.

        Gaming and even sects fulfil these arguments.

        That’s my point, and the reason that makes me having such an strong position about crypto (note I talk about cryptocurrencies, exchanges, mining and such, not about blockchain).

  25. Surprised how so many people are jumping on the energy thing. I don’t see anyone complaining about this when Santander or Heineken is sponsoring F1, I’m sure those guys are vastly energy inefficient as well. I guess the traditional finance’s propaganda is working well.

    Look up Nano for instance, it’s a cryptocurrency that involves no mining. There are literally thousands of coins out there, not all of them are like Bitcoin.

    1. I think that’s why it’s good that bitcoin (in particular) has been singled out. It means other currencies are encouraged to do something different. Do something better.

      As for buying Nano though. I’ve never heard of it. Crypto in general is still a big gamble, and at least bitcoin has established its starting power. Smaller coins probably do offer potential for big returns, but that’s always the same with longer odds.

  26. Thanks for post!

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