Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
- Crypto.com’s coin price rose 26% after the platform bought the naming rights to the LA Lakers’ home.
- The stadium, once known as the Staples Center, will become the Crypto.com Arena after December 25.
- The Crypto.com coin is the 16th largest cryptocurrency by market value.
The digital coin named after the Crypto.com exchange jumped 26% Wednesday after the platform bought the naming rights to the Los Angeles Lakers Arena.
The Staples Center, home to the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers, will be known as the Crypto.com Arena starting December 25, Insider reported. The logo and signs inside the arena will be changed in times for the Lakers’ game against the Brooklyn Nets.
With the announcement, the Crypto.com coin, which is the namesake token of the crypto trading platform, jumped 26%. It traded at $0.5321 at 2:36 p.m. in New York, according to CoinMarketCap data. With a value of $13.9 billion, it’s the 18th largest coin by market capitalization.
The trading platform paid $700 million for the renaming rights, according to the Los Angeles Times, making it one of the most expensive naming deals in sports history. The network’s Chief Executive Officer Kris Marszalek said in the report that the purchase would mark the moment when crypto became mainstream.
Crypto.com isn’t the first platform to ink a pro sports deal. Sam Bankman Fried’s FTX exchange bought the naming rights for the Miami Heat’s stadium in a $135 million deal announced in March. FTX’s US platform teamed up with University of Kentucky basketball players earlier this month to allow them to mint their own non-fungible tokens as brand ambassadors.
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