But for a price to stay stable, you also need to generate excitement, the famous FOMO2. The trouble is that between botched ICOs and outright scams, crypto is already tightly regulated, and most traditional channels, advertising in particular, are off-limits. Even Twitter, Musk’s acquisition notwithstanding, doesn’t allow crypto ads3.
That’s why most budgets go to specialist media, and above all to influencers. And that’s where it gets messy, because the ethics are, shall we say… debatable.
Budget of Polkadot in Q2 2024
In Q2 2024, Polkadot spent nearly $37M on marketing. That includes, for instance, the shirt sponsorship of Miami’s MLS team, signed after FC Barcelona turned down Polkadot’s offer in 2022.
After going without a sponsor (visible on the shirt) for a long time, FC Barcelona signed a 5-year deal worth €60M a year with Rakuten in 2016, extended by one more year, with another sponsor on the sleeve: Beko. When Beko ended the partnership in 2021, the spot was empty. And Polkadot would happily have taken it.
The foundation that runs the blockchain leaked to the press that it would become the team’s sponsor. Except that Spotify had already signed a partnership, including the naming rights to the stadium. A figure of €100M over 5 years had even been announced.
According to a source close to the deal at the time, Polkadot was in fact ruled out very quickly, and the amount it offered was well below €20M a year, lower even than what Beko had put on the table. This person’s verdict, in substance:
Polkadot never had the means or the intention to sponsor Barça, only the wish to get itself a bit of publicity.
Which worked, judging by the hundred or so articles that picked up the story, explaining who Polkadot is, apparently without ever checking the information.