Ed Carpenter’s IndyCar team is awash with sponsorship from cryptocurrency companies, but he feels that will not a problem going forward despite many digital currencies losing value recently.
Bitcoin, one of the world’s most popular decentralized currencies, has lost over half its value compared to the US Dollar over the past three months. And it is not alone.
Many other digital currencies have also lost value, and many of the companies that manage those funds are suffering. This includes BitNile, which itself has lost nearly two-thirds of its stock value this year.
With Conor Daly being sponsored by BitNile, and Rinus VeeKay being sponsored by BitCoin itself, there was some concern that the recent downturn would negatively affect the team’s operations.
The owner denied that prospect, however, and assured Motorsport Week that his sponsorship deals are safe for this and next season.
“Not really,” said Carpenter when asked if he was worried. “With BitNile, we’re promoting their mining operation, but BitNile itself has a lot of different companies.
“They’re actually in a pretty good and stable position with the way their crypto investments are relative to some of the other firms you’ve seen get in trouble that were over-leveraged. For us, everything is looking okay. We’ll see how it goes in the future.”
Carpenter commented on Daly’s deal as well, which goes through next season and is fully dependent on BitNile’s continued sponsorship.
“Yeah, everything’s very positive. Going well. I don’t expect any changes there, and we’ll see what happens.”
Carpenter is racing alongside his two full time drivers this weekend, as he is running the season’s oval races in a third car for his own team.