Charlotte, N.C. (AP) — Landon Cassill would be the first NASCAR driver paid solely in cryptocurrency in a sponsorship take care of Voyager that begins at Nashville Superspeedway this weekend.
Voyager, a cryptocurrency brokerage platform, reached a 19-race deal to sponsor Cassill within the Xfinity Sequence in his JD Motorsports entry. Voyager pays the funds in Litecoin to Cassill, who has been avid out there for a number of years.
Cassill first met Voyager CEO Steve Ehrlich at a crypto convention two years in the past when Cassill was talking on a panel. He’d been pitching the sponsorship concept ever since.
“Landon Cassill’s focus and dedication on the race monitor interprets throughout the whole lot he does,” stated Ehrlich. “Landon additionally shares our imaginative and prescient of widespread crypto adoption, and we’re proud to be the primary firm to safe a main NASCAR sponsorship fully with crypto.”
Cassill stated Voyager is paying “market price” for the sponsorship however the funds might be distributed in crypto. He stated the fee is a “portfolio of digital property” that features Litecoin and Bitcoin priced at market charges.
“I can commerce it out immediately earlier than the market adjustments or hold on to it because the market goes up or goes down, carve out a bit of bit, pay my payments with it and maintain the remainder,” he stated.
Cassill stated he is been invested in cryptocurrency for a number of years and seen “important positive factors” to his private portfolio. He stated he had no hesitation in placing collectively a deal that can pay crypto as an alternative of chilly onerous money.
“There is a handful of drivers which are into crypto, however I am in all probability one which’s been in it for lengthy sufficient that is I am fairly comfy with the way it works,” Cassill stated.
The crypto market is simply starting to hit motorsports and Bitcoin had a high-profile debut on the Indianapolis 500 as the first sponsor for Rinus VeeKay. The weekend after the IndyCar race, VeeKay, Conor Daly and Ed Carpenter have been in Miami attending a Bitcoin conference.
“Crypto platforms use quite a lot of social media and neighborhood constructing as advertising and marketing,” Cassill stated. “The massive firms have not completed quite a lot of nationwide advert campaigns, so for Voyager to go after a nationwide advert marketing campaign is an indication that the area is absolutely beginning to department out.”
___
Extra AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
