“‘Like an idiot, I did it.””
Larry David addressed his 2022 commercial for the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX in which he touted how he is “never wrong” about a series of iconic inventions throughout history.
During a red carpet event this week for the 12th season of his HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” David said he was told by a bunch of his friends that it was a good idea to do a crypto ad back then, and “like an idiot, I did it.”
The commercial was made by FTX, which was started by Sam Bankman-Fried. Back then, Bankman-Fried was a rockstar crypto leader, but in 2023 he was convicted of fraud. The ad debuted during the 2022 Super Bowl along with crypto ads made by rivals Crypto.com and Coinbase.
David went on to lament his participation in the ad by bringing up the class-action lawsuit against him and other FTX promoters that occurred after the exchange went bankrupt.
From the archives (October 2022): Matt Damon’s ‘Fortune Favors the Brave’ commercial turns one. Here’s how much you would’ve lost if you bought crypto then.
When the FTX ad aired, the good times in the crypto industry and specifically FTX were rolling. CEO Bankman-Fried was a billionaire, the Super Bowl featured many crypto ads, celebrities from Matt Damon to Steph Curry were getting involved, and market caps for crypto-affiliated companies like Coinbase
COIN,
and Robinhood
HOOD,
were exploding.
The total market cap for all crypto hit nearly $3 trillion during parts of 2021, but is now about $1.6 trillion.
Read on: Bitcoin is down 20% in wake of a new breed of ETFs. Why prices could still set records this year.
