The ancient advertising problem of awareness without preference has found a new, extremely expensive home in the cryptocurrency sector.
Crypto.com, the exchange that spent something north of a billion dollars plastering its name across Super Bowls, Formula 1 cars, and the arena formerly known as Staples Center in Los Angeles, has arrived at the destination that awaits brands who believe volume is a substitute for meaning. Steven Kalifowitz, the chief marketing officer who orchestrated what may be the most aggressive brand-awareness campaign in the brief history of digital finance, is stepping into an advisory role on July 1, leaving behind a logo that Americans can identify with ease and a value proposition they cannot.
The spending was, by any measure, spectacular. The Matt Damon advertisement — in which the actor strolled through centuries of human courage while intoning "Fortune Favors the Brave" — became one of the most-discussed commercials of 2021. (What it was actually selling, beyond bravery as a lifestyle choice, remained somewhat unclear.)
The difficulty, as the marketing scholar Mark Ritson observed in an assessment that doubles as a postmortem, is that Crypto.com's rivals spent less and said more. Coinbase, under Brian Armstrong, positioned itself as the regulatory-friendly exchange for people who wanted their cryptocurrency transactions to feel like banking. Binance claimed the offshore market. Even FTX, before its spectacular collapse, had a discernible point of view. Crypto.com had an arena.
The numbers tell the rest of the story with characteristic bluntness. Coinbase ended 2025 with roughly 108 million users and a public valuation that has hovered above $50 billion. Crypto.com, despite its heavier media weight, claims approximately the same user base but trades privately at a fraction of the per-user value.
Mr. Kalifowitz will now advise on a brand that became famous without ever becoming meaningful — which is, in its way, a fitting second act.
Original story published in The Drum: "Mark Ritson: The Crypto.com brand banked on being remembered. All without a ‘why’ | The Drum"