CRYPTO.COM IS COMING FOR YOU (With a Little Help From Matt Damon and LeBron James)

All of a sudden, they're everywhere. Matt Damon's pitching us their services. LeBron James, too. They're plastered all over the NBA, the NHL, Serie A, Formula 1.... But what exactly does Crypto.com do? And what exactly do they want from us?

- STEPHEN WITT

LIKE MOST PEOPLE, I first heard of Crypto.com when Matt Damon popped up on my TV screen and suggested I was a coward. I've followed cryptocurrencies for over a decade, but I've never invested in them-beyond money laundering, I'd never been able to understand what they were good for. Seeing Damon, though, I understood that the public perception of the technology had reached a new phase. And, yes, I felt in danger of being left behind. Damon's commercial is part of a larger, sports-focused marketing push by Crypto.com: The cryptocurrency exchange's lion-head logo appears on the ice of the NHL, in the octagon of the UFC, and on the jerseys of the Philadelphia 76ers. Last November, the company announced it had purchased the naming rights to the downtown arena of the Los Angeles Lakers, at the cost of $700 million; during this year's Super Bowl, Crypto.com aired an advertisement featuring LeBron James. In March, it announced it will be sponsoring the World Cup.

Crypto.com, as it currently exists, earns most of its money executing trades for clients via its smartphone app. (The company courts the small investor, and several people I talked to compared Crypto.com to the investing app Robinhood.) But charging fees to trade cryptocurrencies is a lucrative business, and rival exchanges like FTX and Coinbase are fighting for the same customers. FTX owns the stadium-naming rights for the Miami Heat, and Coinbase-which went public last year, reporting higher profit margins than Google-is the NBA's exclusive cryptocurrency-platform partner. If the 76ers travel to Miami for a nationally televised game, you will see all three brands advertising on the same broadcast.