FTX Accused of Illegally Financing Super Bowl Ad

FTX is facing more scrutiny related to its sports business ventures.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a lawsuit last week accusing the crypto exchange of combining its funds with sister fund Alameda Research.

“On information and belief, commingled funds, including FTX customer funds, were also furtively used by [CEO Sam] Bankman-Fried and FTX for extensive marketing and promotional expenses in the U.S.,” the lawsuit alleges.

Two of the expenses cited are FTX’s Super Bowl LVI commercial and naming rights to the Miami Heat’s arena.

• It was previously reported that FTX paid $6.5 million for a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot.
• FTX struck a 19-year, $135 million deal with Miami-Dade County in 2021 for the arena’s naming rights. 

Dentsu Creative, FTX’s former agency partner, may be unintentionally involved as it helped the exchange with the Super Bowl ad. The same goes for NBC, who sold FTX ad space for the commercial.

Companies involved could be subject to clawbacks, according to AdAge.

Continued Crypto Collapse

Binance.US is capitalizing on FTX’s failed efforts.

FTX had previously won a bidding process for Voyager Digital’s assets after the latter exchange filed for bankruptcy in July. On Monday, Voyager announced Binance.US — which is nominally independent of Binance — won the second bidding process in a $1.02 billion deal following FTX’s bankruptcy filing.