Polkadot comes to the Indianapolis 500 after community members vote to select IndyCar racing star Conor Daly as a brand ambassador. The year-long collaboration, announced by the Daly company at a press conference Tuesday, will begin during the preeminent race taking place in May.
A proposal to sponsor Daly adopted by 95.8% approval in a community vote on the Polk Assembly website. The plan, which was scheduled for review from Feb. 19 to March 14, requested 290,000 DOT, worth about $2.1 million, to cover a team's $1.7 million commercial sponsorship fee shopping and other expenses.
“The Indy 500 is iconic and the greatest spectacle in auto racing. Ask any race car driver and it's the only race they would want to win,” Polkadot Community Contributor Chris Wade said. who led the initiative. Decrypt.
“Additionally, Conor's Polkadot sponsorship includes a NASCAR truck and a Nitro Cross Race, and Conor's experience straddles them all,” Wade added.
Daly competed in the Indy 500 and Daytona 500 in the same year as well as in Formula 2 in Europe.
“It’s fast, powerful and adaptive, just like Polkadot,” Wade said.
Launched in 2020 by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, Peas is a “multi-chain network” that aims to connect different specialized blockchains into a single unified network. Currently the 15th largest blockchain by market capitalization according to CoinGecko, Polkadot (POINT) is up 3.2% for the week and trading at $8.84.
“The fact that thousands of individuals in the Polkadot community – and not a corporate marketing team – used their voice to vote and choose me as their ambassador is an incredible honor and reflects the power of what an Internet can look like freer and more open world. future,” Daly said in a statement.
![IndyCar polka dot](https://img.decrypt.co/insecure/rs:fit:3840:0:0:0/plain/https://cdn.decrypt.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Decrypt-Wallpaper-Format-1600-x-900-px-10.png@webp)
The sponsorship deal with Daly, signed by Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Cusick Motorsports, is the latest partnership between the racing and crypto industries.
In 2021, McLaren racing tapped Tezos to launch a collection of Formula 1 NFTs. In February 2022, Red Bull Racing signed a $150 million sponsorship deal with cryptocurrency exchange Bybit. The Red Bull Racing deal was followed by another in June 2023 with According to the blockchain creator Mysten Labs.
In January, Grammy Award-winning rapper Drake announced a two-year sponsorship deal between Sauber Formula 1 and crypto gaming site Stake.
“The fact that I'm not just running for a brand name or logo, but to represent developers, investors and everyday people who are building the web of tomorrow, is exciting and life-changing,” Daly added. “We are giving power back to the people, while making sporting history.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.