What FTX Marketing Was Actually Trying to Accomplish

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 786 Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A new long read argues that crypto’s biggest weakness is its inability to tell its own story—an issue magnified by the mainstream media’s fixation on outdated narratives. NLW agrees with much of the piece, but brings a unique perspective as the former architect of FTX’s high-profile marketing push, including stadium naming rights, Super Bowl ads, and celebrity campaigns. He explains the strategy behind those controversial moves, why they made sense at the time, and how FTX’s collapse wiped out the industry-wide narrative gains they might have brought. This is a candid look at the intersection of crypto PR, media coverage, and one of the most infamous brand-building plays in the industry’s history. Source: https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2025/07/29/crypto-has-a-comms-issue Brought to you by: Grayscale offers more than 20 different crypto investment products. Explore the full suite at grayscale.com. Invest in your share of the future. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal. To learn more, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Grayscale.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.grayscale.com//?utm_source=blockworks&utm_medium=paid-other&utm_campaign=brand&utm_id=&utm_term=&utm_content=audio-thebreakdown)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreakdownBW Subscribe to the newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownBW

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.
0:09.3	It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.
0:18.4	What's going on, guys? It is Sunday, August 10th, and that means it's time for Longreed Sunday. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, back with another long read Sunday, and we got an interesting one today. It's one that, as you'll see, I have a little bit more of a direct connection to, let's say, an opinion informed by that. The piece, which has a photo of the old FTX arena, so you can see where this is headed, is called Crypto
0:54.3	has a comms issue. It's by Aubrey Strabel and Elena Nisinoff who have just launched a new
0:59.4	crypto-focused PR firm called Halcyon. I'm going to turn it over to the 11 Labs version of
1:04.9	myself to read this, and then I will come back. Earlier this month, NPR ran a headline,
1:10.4	why there's so much excitement around a
1:11.8	cryptocurrency called Stablecoin. If you want to understand where crypto stands with legacy
1:16.3	media in 2025, start there. The piece was a basic primer on a decade-old innovation that
1:22.4	settles nearly $27 trillion annually, surpassing the combined annual transaction volume of Visa and MasterCard.
1:29.7	Stablecoins are not new, and neither is the media's in curiosity about them.
1:34.5	It was the most recent proof point that in the eyes of legacy media, crypto remains suspended
1:39.2	in a state of perpetual novelty.
1:41.8	The gap between crypto's market performance and the stories told about
1:44.9	it reveals a deeper communications failure. It keeps the public in the dark about transformative
1:49.9	advances in a $4 trillion industry. Today, Bitcoin is up over 110% year-to-date. U.S. listed Bitcoin
1:57.3	ETFs have attracted over $50 billion in net inflows, marking one of the most
2:01.7	successful ETF launches in history.
2:04.3	Global crypto adoption has surpassed 600 million users, with countries like Turkey, Argentina,
2:09.7	and the UAE reporting that nearly one in three adults own crypto.
2:14.6	Consumer products are also taking off.
2:16.6	Decentralized prediction market
	...

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