Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team CEO and Austrian tycoon Toto Wolff is concerned that the demise of cryptocurrency exchange FTX will hurt the entire Formula 1 industry.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russel raced in Mercedes cars that proudly displayed the trading venue’s emblem as a sponsor. However, as the terrible problems that FTX was having came to light in the middle of November, the squad decided to suspend the deal.
The massive drop in FTX last month continues to reverberate strongly across several markets.
In a recent interview, Wolff suggested that the event might cause problems for all of the Formula 1 teams due to the fact that they are all related to the crypto sector in some way, he said that “every team has sponsors like that, and so does the Formula 1 organization as such. So everyone would be affected.”
Wolff, who has shown to be an outspoken supporter of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, claimed that FTX appeared to be a “solid company” before its demise.
According to him, the company’s insolvency is “a huge damper not only for us but for the entire crypto industry,” and the “deficit of eight billion dollars” demonstrates the need for regulation in the field.
In order to spread the word about FTX and provide an NFT collection to loyal customers, Mercedes and FTX signed a sponsorship agreement last year.
Mercedes Ended Deal With FTX
When the F1 team first noticed problems in November, Mercedes stood by its partner and promised to preserve the FTX logo on its automobiles.
However, it severed relations with the market just before the latter filed for bankruptcy. Mercedes stated:
“As a first step, we have suspended our partnership agreement with FTX. This means the company will no longer appear on our race car and other branded assets from this weekend. We will continue to monitor the situation closely as it evolves.”
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