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Sergino Dest of USA and Milad Mohammadi of Iran battle for the ball during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group B match between IR Iran and USA at Al Thumama Stadium on November 29, 2022 in Doha, Qatar.

Matteo Ciambelli | Defodi Images | Getty Images

There were Super Bowl ads, arena sponsorships and celebrity endorsements. TV commercials landed during the nightly news. Money flooded onto Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.

Crypto companies were spending anywhere and everywhere.

Through October of 2022, crypto-related brands shelled out $223 million on ads in the U.S., up 150% from $89 million for all of last year, according to MediaRadar. Few were as aggressive as Crypto.com, which said in late 2021 it was committing $100 million to an ad campaign that would feature Matt Damon and run across 20 countries. The company is an official sponsor of the 2022 World Cup taking place in Qatar.

What the crypto industry giveth, it can taketh away.

The stunning collapse this month of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s broader empire spells further trouble for ad-supported media businesses that had come to see crypto as a new growth engine with money to burn. And FTX is far from the only problem, as the contagion has been spreading for months.

Coinbase has lost over 80% of its value and the company cut 18% of its staff in June, when CEO Brian Armstrong admitted the business grew too quickly and stressed “the need to manage expenses.” Crypto.com has reportedly cut 40% of its workforce, eToro downsized by 10% and in July canceled a planned merger with a special purpose acquisition company, and BlockFi just declared bankruptcy.

“Crypto winter is a crypto advertising winter,” said Grant Harbin, CEO of performance marketing firm Headlight, which has worked with companies in the industry. “There’s probably very little consideration on scaling advertising budgets right now.”

In the third quarter of this year, the top crypto advertisers spent just $35 million on ads, according to MediaRadar, an 80% drop from the first quarter, which got a huge boost from the country’s single biggest sporting event — the Super Bowl.

The pullback in spending, which is expected to intensify given the industry’s deepening turmoil, is notable as ad-based companies face broader challenges from soaring inflation and fears of a recession. But while crypto represented a promising area for growth, it still makes up a tiny portion of the overall ad market.

Companies overall are expected to spend almost $89 billion on TV ads this year, across linear programming and connected devices, and close to $250 billion on digital ads, according to Insider Intelligence.

Blockchain holds a lot of promise, but most of it is speculative, says Fmr. FDIC Chair Sheila Bair

Facebook (including Instagram), Snap, Twitter and TikTok combined are expected to pull in $57.1 million in ads from crypto exchanges this year, according to SensorTower. That’s about even with 2021 figures, though almost all of the spending last year was on Facebook and Instagram.

In Alphabet‘s third-quarter earnings call last month, the company blamed a slowdown in revenue growth in part on reduced ad spending by cypto companies and other financial firms. Google’s sales growth was the slowest for any period since 2013, other than one quarter during the Covid pandemic.

The spending roller coaster

SensorTower data shows a big spike in crypto ad spending on digital media around October and November of last year, as prices were peaking, and a steep drop after the first quarter of this year. In April, the crypto sell-off began in earnest, with bitcoin and ether each losing well over half their value over the next three months.

The Super Bowl created a spending splurge that the industry may never see again. A 30-second spot during the NFL’s grand finale in February cost an average of $6.5 million, and crypto was a huge theme.

Coinbase, Crypto.com, eToro and FTX spent a combined $54 million on Super Bowl ads, according to MediaRadar. Coinbase aired a 60-second commercial showing a bouncing QR code that, once scanned, led to a promotion offering $15 worth of free bitcoin to new users. FTX signed up Larry David for an ad, urging viewers not to miss out on crypto and declaring NFTs “the next big thing.” A version of “Fly Me to the Moon” played during eToro’s commercial.

Promotional costs weren’t limited to airtime.

In 2021, Crypto.com paid $700 million to put its name on the home of the Los Angeles Lakers for the next 20 years. FTX signed a 19-year deal worth $135 million with the NBA’s Miami Heat for naming rights to the team’s arena, partnered with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and had its logo placed on uniforms worn by Major League Baseball umpires.

Miami-Dade County is now trying to get the FTX named scrubbed from the arena. Miami has become a major hub for the crypto industry, and in September FTX moved its U.S. headquarters there from Chicago. The company spread its wings in the city, sponsoring a three-day crypto weekend in May on South Beach called “FTX Off the Grid.”

Jordan Levy, a Miami-based venture capitalist, said that while other crypto companies have advertised in the city, FTX was on another level.

“None of them have as significant of a presence in Miami as Bankman-Fried and FTX,” said the managing partner of SBNY, formerly SoftBank New York. “They’ve tried to do some guerrilla marketing stuff that put them on the top of the food chain from perception perspective.”

The money FTX was spending now presumably goes to zero. According to SensorTower, the company’s online ad spending quadrupled this year to $13.3 million, with roughly half of that coming in the first quarter.

Crypto.com’s online ad spending plummeted from about $16.2 million in the first quarter to $1.6 million in the third, SensorTower said. And Gemini, the exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, cut spending from $8.5 million the first quarter to $2,500 in the third.

Coinbase, the only major exchange that’s publicly traded in the U.S., said in its earnings report this month that its sales and marketing expense dropped 46% in the third quarter from the prior period to $76 million. The company attributed the decline to “our decision to reduce performance marketing, due to lower efficiency in this spend associated with softer crypto market conditions as well as savings associated with our headcount reduction.”

Coinbase didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A Crypto.com spokesperson said via email that the company’s $100 million campaign ran from October 2021 through February 2022. Since then, “we ran additional advertising as part of our marketing strategy, and we continue to focus on our global brand and sports partnerships,” the spokesperson said. That includes sponsorship of the World Cup.

Brad Michelson, eToro’s U.S. head of marketing, said the Israel-based investment platform will “actively adjust spend based on performance,” and plans to continue building its brand in the U.S.

“It’s no secret that the markets are in a pull-back phase, and our budgets are being reallocated accordingly,” Michelson told CNBC in a statement.

The crypto market has suffered downturns in the past, only to bounce back and attract even greater sums of cash and new entrants.

Joseph Panzarella, director of digital media and marketing at the Yeshiva University’s Katz School of Science and Health, said that even if the market starts recovering, the high-profile scandals of 2022 will force companies to take a more serious approach when promoting their offerings.

“What they came out with was like, ‘Hey, we’re going to stick it to the Fed,'” Panzarella said, referring to the industry’s focus on decentralization and its ability to function without the heavy hand of government. “I guess they have to eat a little crow and say something like, ‘Hey, we are now we’re now [open to] being regulated.'”

WATCH: FTX’s bankruptcy puts increased pressure on the ad market

FTX's bankruptcy puts increased pressure on the ad market

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Palantir is soaring while its tech peers are sinking. Here’s why

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Palantir is soaring while its tech peers are sinking. Here's why

Alex Karp, chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during the AIPCon conference in Palo Alto, California, US, on March 13, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tech stocks have struggled in 2025, as recession and trade war fears sap investor appetite for riskier assets.

Palantir is the exception.

Against a volatile market backdrop, the software maker’s stock has gained 45% and is the best performer among companies valued at $5 billion or more, according to FactSet. The closest tech names are VeriSign, up 33%, Okta, up 30%, Robinhood, up 29%, and Uber, up 29%.

President Donald Trump‘s frenzy of government department overhauls is partially to thank for the pop.

“When you think about macroeconomic concerns, you as a company need to be more efficient, and this is where Palantir thrives,” said Bank of America analyst Mariana Pérez Mora.

Palantir has set itself apart in the software world for its artificial-intelligence-enabled tools, gaining recognition for its defense and software contracts with key U.S. government agencies, including the military. In the fourth quarter, its government revenues jumped 45% year-over-year to $343 million.

Read more CNBC tech news

Companies have faced immense volatility in 2025 as tariffs threaten to jeopardize global supply chains and halt day-to-day manufacturing operations by hiking costs. Those fears have brought the broad market index down about 7% this year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has slumped 11%.

Tech’s megacap companies — Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla — are all down between 7% and 31% so far this year.

At the same time, the Trump administration has clamped down on government spending, giving Tesla CEO Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency freedom to slash public sector costs. Some administration officials have touted shifting dollars from consulting contracts to commercial software providers like Palantir, said William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma.

“Palantir’s business model is highly aligned with the priorities of the Trump administration in terms of increasing agility and being very quick to market,” he said.

That’s put Palantir in the league with major contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which have outperformed in this year’s downdraft. Many companies in the space are also looking to partner with the firm and tend to flock to defense during recessionary times, DiPalma said.

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Palantir vs. the Nasdaq Composite

CEO Alex Karp has also been a vocal supporter of American innovation and the company’s central role in helping prop up what he called the “single best tech scene in the world” during an interview with CNBC earlier this year. Karp also told CNBC that the U.S. needs an “all-country effort” to compete against emerging adversaries.

But the ride for Palantir has been far from smooth, and shares have been susceptible to volatile swings. Shares sold off nearly 14% during the week that Trump first announced tariffs. Shares rocketed 22% one day in February on strong earnings.

Its inclusion in more passive and quant funds over the years and the growing attention of retail traders has added to that turbulence, DiPalma said. Last year, the company joined both the S&P and Nasdaq. Palantir trades at one of the highest price-to-earnings multiples in software and last traded at 185 times earnings over the next twelve months. That puts a steep bar on the stock.

“There really is no margin for error,” he said.

WATCH: Palantir CEO on Elon Musk & DOGE: Biggest problem in society is the ‘legitimacy of our institutions’

Palantir CEO on Elon Musk & DOGE: Biggest problem in society is the 'legitimacy of our institutions'

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NXP Semi shares sink on tariff concerns, CEO Kurt Sievers to step down

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NXP Semi shares sink on tariff concerns, CEO Kurt Sievers to step down

Kurt Sievers, chief executive officer of NXP Semiconductors NV, during the Federation of German Industries (BDI) conference in Berlin, Germany, on Monday, June 19, 2023.

Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz | Bloomberg | Getty Images

NXP Semiconductor Inc. fell about 8% on Monday after the chip company announced that CEO Kurt Sievers will step down as part of its latest earnings.

Here’s how the company did, versus LSEG consensus estimates:

  • Earnings per share: $2.64 adjusted vs. $2.58 expected
  • Revenue: $2.84 billion vs. $2.83 billion expected

Sievers will retire at the end of the year, with Rafael Sotomayor stepping in as president on April 28, 2025.

The company beat expectations on the top and bottom lines but cited a “challenging set of market conditions” looking forward.

“We are operating in a very uncertain environment influenced by tariffs with volatile direct and indirect effects,” Sievers said in an earnings release.

Sales in NXP’s first quarter declined 9% year over year.

The company posted $1.67 billion in auto sales during the first quarter, trailing analyst estimates of $1.69 billion.

Read more CNBC tech news

NXP Semi said that second-quarter sales would come in at a midpoint of $2.9 billion, ahead of the $2.87 billion that analysts were projecting. Second-quarter adjusted EPS will be $2.66, in line with analyst estimates.

The company logged first-quarter net income of $490 million, which was a 23% year-to-year drop from $639 million.

NXP’s net income per share was $1.92 compared to $2.47 during the same time a year ago. A drop of 22%.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

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Microsoft says U.S. can’t afford falling behind China in quantum computers

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Microsoft says U.S. can't afford falling behind China in quantum computers

Microsoft President Brad Smith speaks during signing ceremony of cooperation agreement between the Polish Ministry of Defence and Microsoft, in Warsaw, Poland, February 17, 2025.

Kacper Pempel | Reuters

The U.S. cannot afford to fall behind China in the race to a working quantum computer, Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote Monday.

President Donald Trump and the U.S. government need to prioritize funding for quantum research, or China could surpass the U.S., endangering economic competitiveness and security, Smith wrote.

“While most believe that the United States still holds the lead position, we cannot afford to rule out the possibility of a strategic surprise or that China may already be at parity with the United States,” Smith wrote. “Simply put, the United States cannot afford to fall behind, or worse, lose the race entirely.”

Microsoft’s position is the latest sign that research into quantum computing is starting to heat up among big tech companies and investors who are looking for the next technology that could rival the artificial intelligence boom.

Smith is calling for the Trump administration to increase funding for quantum research, renew the National Quantum Initiative Act and expand a program for testing quantum computers by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The Microsoft executive is also calling on the White House to expand the educational pipeline of people who have the math and science skills to work on quantum machines, fast-track immigration for Ph.D.s with quantum skills and for the government to buy more quantum-related computer parts to build a U.S. supply chain.

Microsoft did not detail how China surpassing the U.S. in quantum computing technology would endanger national security, but a National Security Agency official last year discussed what could happen if China or another adversary surprised the U.S. by building a quantum computer first.

The official, NSA Director of Research Gil Herrera, said that if such a “black swan” event happened, banks might not be able to keep transactions private because a quantum computer could crack their encryption, according to the Washington Times. A working quantum computer could also crack existing encrypted data that is usually shared publicly in a scrambled fashion, which could reveal secrets on U.S. nuclear weapon systems.

In February, Microsoft announced its latest quantum chip called Majorana, claiming that it invented a new kind of matter to develop the prototype device. Last year, Google announced Willow, a new device the company claimed was a “milestone” because it was able to correct errors and solve a math problem in five minutes that would have taken longer than the age of the universe on a traditional computer.

While the computers people are used to use bits that are either 0 or 1 to do calculations, quantum computers use “qubits,” which end up being on or off based on probability. Experts say that quantum computers will eventually be useful for problems with nearly infinite possibilities, such as simulating chemistry, or routing deliveries.

But the current quantum computers are far away from that point, and many computer industry participants say it could take decades for quantum computers to reach their potential.

Microsoft’s chip, Majorana, has eight qubits, but the company says it has a goal of least 1 million qubits for a commercially useful chip. Microsoft needs to build a device with a few hundred qubits before the company starts looking at whether it’s reliable enough for customers.

WATCH: How quantum computing could supercharge Google’s AI ambitions

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