The Scuderia Ferrari F1 team recently ended its sponsorship deal with crypto firm Velas and chip manufacturer Snapdragon. The Italian squad declared their alliance with Velas at the end of 2021. F1 teams seemed enthusiastic about deals with cryptocurrency firms at the time. However, things have changed in the crypto space, with such agreements not being as lucrative as before. The cancellation of the sponsorships resulted in a $55 million loss for the Italian race giant.
Apart from Ferrari, the AlphaTauri F1 team has also called a close to its deal with Fantom and ICM.com. Although AlphaTauri has not yet released a formal announcement, Decal Spotters tweeted about the development. ICM.com joined AlphaTauri as a sponsor in 2021, while Fantom joined just before the 2022 season.
The Mercedes Benz F1 team also terminated its deal with FTX after the exchange’s collapse in early November 2021. Mercedes suffered a $15 million loss due to the failed sponsorship deal.
Is this the end of F1’s love of crypto?
Three teams have ended their sponsorship deals with crypto firms. However, some groups are continuing to go through with their respective sponsors. Bybit and Tezos are behind Red Bull. Binance is a sponsor of the Alpine F1 team. Additionally, Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin also have partnerships with Socios.com.
However, Ferrari and Mercedes are two of the biggest names in F1. Therefore, it is possible that the two could create a trend for other teams to follow in their footsteps and consequently drop their crypto sponsors.
The cryptocurrency and sports sectors began a love affair in late 2021, moving into early 2022. We saw the infamous “crypto Super Bowl” in February of 2022. Then we saw almost every F1 team being supported by one cryptocurrency firm or the other. So much so that even the FIFA World Cup 2022 was sponsored by Crypto.com.
At press time, the global cryptocurrency market cap stood at $853 billion, up by 1.3% in the last 24 hours.