Fortune Favors a Bored Ape at the Super Bowl

Welcome to Bloomberg Crypto, our twice-weekly look at Bitcoin, NFTs, blockchain and more. If someone forwarded this to you, sign up here.  In today’s issue, Michael P. Regan gears up for Sunday’s big Super Bowl showdown, which this year features crypto in almost every corner — as well as any number of ways to wager on it.   

All bets are on

Super Bowl parties and cryptocurrency markets have something in common: Both are safe spaces for degens to make rash bets.

It’s not just that both foster risk, but also a diversity of risk-taking so extensive it borders on the absurd. That’s why Caesars has a of Super Bowl prop bets that’s 17 web pages long, and CoinMarketCap.com lists more than 9,000 tokens.

Sadly, the only coin Caesars offers a bet on is the one the referees flip before the game. But a lesser-known outfit, SportsBetting.ag, fixes this. In what reeks of publicity stunt (spoiler alert: it worked!) the site is offering a smorgasbord of crypto-related Super Bowl wagers. Many center on the halftime show featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar — some of whom are owners of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, the latest high-priced status symbol. Speculation is swirling that a Bored Ape will make an appearance during the show, and SportsBetting.ag is offering ways to bet on that.

The probability of a Bored Ape halftime appearance is high enough that the money line was only +110 on Thursday as of midday, according to these oddsmakers, meaning you win $110 if you bet $100 on a sighting. The over/under on how many Bored Apes we’ll see was 1.5.

There are also lines around the commercials being run by crypto exchanges. They say fortune favors the brave and the oddsmakers favor CRYPTO.COM when it comes to which exchange’s ad will air first, with the money line set at -140 (meaning you have to bet $140 to win $100) versus +100 for a bet that FTX’s ad appears first. For lovers of long shots, the odds of a CryptoPunk being the first NFT to appear in any commercial was +1,200.

Some will consider this all in good fun; others will view it as debauchery on par with the fall of the Roman Empire. (We’re ALL Caesars!) So I would bet on a post-game uptick in think pieces, podcasts and YouTube rants that are either cautious about the marriage between crypto and pop culture, bemoan the scam-iness of it all, or just cringe at the distastefulness of celebrities shilling NFTs, like this onethis onethis onethis one this one. However, I’d suggest that if shilling for NFTs is the most distasteful thing Eminem does on Sunday, we should all be thankful.

Charting it out

Hearing them out

truth about money-laundering, as revealed by U.S. authorities' seizure of $3.6 billion in stolen Bitcoin related to a 2016 hack

“If you come to a bank with a sack of cash and say `I, uh, inherited this from my grandmother, she kept cash in sacks,’ that is somewhat hard for the authorities to check. If you come to a crypto exchange with a sack of Bitcoins and say, `I got these cheap in 2014,' that is easier to check. Permanent immutable public LEDGER on the blockchain!”

Matt Levine

“Money Stuff,” Bloomberg Opinion 

What we’re reading (and writing)

• Everyone Lays Claim to $3.6 Billion Bitcoin Bag From Hack
• Silicon Valley Bets on Blockchain Nuts and Bolts (Financial Times)
• Recent Bitcoin Buyers Are Likely Underwater Even After Rebound
• Washington Nationals Ink Partnership With Terra Crypto Community (The Hill)
• A Deep Dive Into Crypto’s Cure for the Texas Power Grid (Bloomberg Opinion)
• A $4.5 Billion Crypto Crime Stars an NYC Couple, Stolen Bitcoin and Rap

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