This year's Super Bowl had an amazing audience of 127.7 million, but in sharp contrast to three years ago, this edition saw no crypot adverts.
In 2022, however, there was a plethora of crypto advertisements during Super Bowl time from players such as Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S.; Crypto.com, which famously rebranded the Staples Center in Los Angeles for an astounding $700 million and recently hosted the 2025 Grammy Awards; eToro from Israel; and FTX, which imploded after some months in what has been called «one of the foremost financial frauds in American history.»
«The absence of crypto ads at this year's Super Bowl is a predictable sign of the market adjusting after previous years of excitement,» said Alan Vey in an interview with TheStreet Crypto. «Due to regulatory uncertainty and with the tightening of the economic environment, many blockchain and crypto companies are turning their attention away from these large marketing initiatives and focusing more on practical applications.»
Additionally, with AI being the focus in 2025, Vey stated to TheStreet Crypto an expectation to see AI advertising at Super Bowl prominent. Major corporations including Google, Meta, Salesforce, and OpenAI launched AI-specific commercials during the event, with big Hollywood celebrities like Matthew McConaughey appearing in Salesforce ads touting «how AI was meant to be» and Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, and Kris Jenner featured wearing Meta AI glasses.
«AI is the new sensation, capturing attention with larger advertising budgets — but this doesn't imply that the momentum behind crypto has waned,» Vey commented. «The industry is evolving, maturing to prioritize long-term sustainable growth over fleeting marketing efforts.»
In contrast, some analysts are careful not to read it as AI's victory over crypto. «This doesn't indicate AI's triumph over crypto,» stated Utkarsh Ahuja, founder of Moon Pursuit Capital, to TheStreet Crypto. «It's no accident that David Sacks, the newly-appointed AI and Crypto Czar, oversees both fields — these technologies are not just coexisting but are merging, creating new opportunities together,» Ahuja added.
Realistically, insiders say this defection is a movement by an industry worth $3.16 trillion in the digital assets space away from retail, which has already seen adoption approaching one-third of American adults.
«Crypto's emphasis for 2025 is on institutional adoption,» Eli Cohen, General Counsel at Centrifuge, told TheStreet Crypto. «Retail is less crucial, so there's no need for extravagant costly ads.»
Some of the celebs engaged in crypto advertising suffered great financial repercussions; comedian Larry David was even subjected to a class-action lawsuit by disgruntled FTX customers alleging he misled investors. Last year, David said, «You know, I asked people, friends of mine who were knowledgeable about this stuff, 'Should I do this [FTX] ad? Is there anything wrong with this, me doing this? Is this okay?» David shared with the media last year. «And they said 'Yeah, this is totally on the up and up. Yeah. It's fine. Do it.' So, like a fool, I did it.»
Such mistakes exhibit the difficulty in advertising a sector that is relatively young and, at times, has not successfully developed a cogent storyline to attribute legitimacy to itself. Perhaps viewed as nothing more than a technology looking for a problem to solve by its critics, crypto has never been worthy of consideration. «Without a fresh narrative to present to the public,» John Haar, managing director at Swan Bitcoin, stated, «it's challenging to envision a crypto commercial that wouldn't resemble a gambling ad or perhaps an outright scam.»