Crypto CMO Bails After Spending $1B on Matt Damon and a Stadium

Finance

What to know:

Steven Kalifowitz, the marketing wizard behind Crypto.com’s rise from obscurity to “Hey, Matt Damon’s in their ad!” fame, is stepping down after nearly six years.
He’ll be leaving next month, presumably to pursue a career in renaming things no one asked for.
During his tenure, he dropped $1 billion on partnerships, including $700 million to rename the Staples Center to the Crypto.com Arena, because nothing says “financial stability” like rebranding a stadium.

In a move that shocked absolutely no one, Steven Kalifowitz, the chief marketing officer (CMO) at Crypto.com, has decided to peace out after overseeing the company’s transformation from “What’s crypto?” to “Oh, that’s the one with Matt Damon, right?” Kalifowitz, who apparently has a black belt in spending other people’s money, will be stepping down on June 30, leaving behind a trail of high-profile campaigns and a stadium name that still makes us giggle.

A Crypto.com spokesperson confirmed that Kalifowitz will transition to an advisory role, which is corporate speak for “We’ll still pay him to tell us what we already know.” The spokesperson gushed, “Steven has been a significant contributor to the effective mainstreaming of the Crypto.com brand,” which is just a fancy way of saying he spent a billion dollars to make sure you’ve at least heard of them.

Under Kalifowitz’s watchful eye, Crypto.com went from being an app that confused your grandparents to a global brand with partnerships that include Formula 1, the UFC, and a $100 million campaign featuring Matt Damon asking, “Fortune favors the brave.” Spoiler alert: Fortune also favors people who don’t invest in crypto based on celebrity endorsements.

Before Crypto.com, Kalifowitz was a brand manager at Twitter and president of Localize.city, which is impressive but not nearly as fun as renaming a stadium. Crypto.com, founded in 2016 and based in Singapore, lets users buy and sell over 200 cryptocurrencies, because why stop at Bitcoin when you can lose money on 199 others?

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