We thought that the roaring dumpster fire of FTX was finally sputtering out.

SBF has finally been sentenced, now it’s just a question of rolling through the C-suite executives and figuring out who else needs a closer look.

But like the villain from a television soap opera, FTX has hit us with yet another twist.

Major League Baseball, Formula One race car drivers, Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars? Who wasn’t on FTX’s payroll? 

Espresso Shots

☕️ Bitcoin’s Bull Run

Bitcoin rose above the $39,000 mark on December 1, leaving us all wondering if we’re already in the midst of the next, great bull run.

Ironically, Friday’s surge may have been prompted by a Grayscale report detailing Bitcoin’s bull run.

Grayscale has attributed Bitcoin’s performance to “gradually improving crypto fundamentals and a relatively tight supply picture in major tokens (due to Bitcoin’s current ownership structure, for example). This may be consistent with rising crypto valuations in the year ahead, especially if the Federal Reserve has finished tightening and the US economy can avoid a “hard landing” (recession).”

But it’s not all roses. “There are also headwinds facing Bitcoin’s price,” Sam Callahan of Swan Bitcoin told Decrypt. “These include the risk of a recession and the potential denial of a Spot Bitcoin ETF,” Callahan continued, adding that a rejection from the SEC could be a “shock to the market.”

Though, as we were writing this, Bitcoin rose above $41,000 for the first time since April 2022. Go baby, go!

Now, we don’t want to get too optimistic with our predictions, but we have a feeling that by 2025, Bitcoin will be the only currency and death will cease to exist.

☕️ Musk Outburst Makes Memecoins

Elon Musk made headlines on Wednesday when he told Apple, IBM, Disney, Ubisoft, and the more than 200 companies that have pulled advertising from X to “Go fuck yourself.”

Advertisers have been pulling out since Musk endorsed a post promoting an antisemitic conspiracy.

Musk has since apologized for the post but emphasized the importance of free speech on X. Again, most notably, he told all those advertisers fleeing X to “Go fuck yourself.”

Musk’s outburst spawned a wave of “Go fuck yourself” or “GFY” shitcoins, the most prominent of which is the GFY Ethereum token pool on Uniswap which at one point was $600,000 in liquidity but has about $10 at the time of writing.

If you think this is wacky press, just wait until Musk seduces Bob Iger, makes the Disney CEO fall in love, and then breaks Iger’s heart.

☕️ Ronaldo Sued

Soccer Star Cristiano Ronaldo is the target of a $1 billion, class-action lawsuit for his role in endorsing Binance.

The lawsuit claims that Ronaldo drove consumer traffic toward Binance.US, which in turn illegally pushed those users toward Binance’s international division. 

The lawsuit argues that Ronaldo should have known better, given his investment experience and his financial potential to bring on outside advisors.

Adam Moskowitz, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, argued that "promoters like Cristiano Ronaldo, with a financial incentive for themselves or for the financial benefit of the securities issuer (Binance), can be held liable under securities laws for using the internet and social media for mass solicitations of cryptocurrency.”

But Ronaldo probably isn’t intimidated by this lawsuit, his only fear is that someone will carve a newer, even more hideous statue of him.

Spilling the Beans

Endorse At Your Own Risk 👍 ☠

Being a spokesperson seems like one of the sweetest deals you can get.

 It’s the icing on the cake of being a famous actor or world-class athlete.

You go in for a shoot that doesn’t last more than a day. It’s a quick paycheck that only makes you that much richer and more famous.

But is it the responsibility of celebrity endorsers to do their due diligence when it comes to the products they’re hawking?

We can confidently say… sometimes.

David Ortiz shouldn’t have to know the nutritional value of a Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Coffee to plaster his gap-toothed grin all over next summer’s Dunkachino Campaign.

But on the other hand, Darrell Winfield, the actor who played the Marlboro Man for the Philip Morris tobacco company for twenty years, probably had a pretty strong feeling the filtered cigarettes he was pushing weren’t making anybody healthier.

But on the scale of cigarettes to coffee, where do FTX endorsers fall?

Well, before we get into moral alignments, we’re going to have to bring you up to speed on the new settlements.

Yes, it’s not just Larry David, Tom Brady, or Steph Curry anymore, a new wave of class action lawsuits in late November also targeted Major League Baseball, Formula One Racing, and the Mercedez-Benz Group’s AG racing team.

Also, Trevor Wallace, quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, was one of the additional celebrities named in a class action lawsuit back in September. Still, he somehow managed to slip under the defensive line of bad publicity.

And it’s not just FTX. As we mentioned earlier, Cristiano Ronaldo was just served with a $1 billion class action lawsuit for his role in promoting Binance’s illegal American operations.

Now, as new names and entertainment institutions are added to the list of those responsible for crypto disasters, we have to ask…

Is it really their fault?

Ignorantia juris non excusat is one of our oldest legal principles, dating back to the Roman justice system.

It translates to “ignorance of the law excuses no one” meaning that just because you’re not aware of a law, doesn’t mean that you’re free to violate it.

But ignorance was almost an explicit part of the FTX advertising. If anyone remembers the Steph Curry advertisement in which he claims he’s “no expert at cryptocurrency, but that’s okay.”

A lack of comprehension was part of the appeal. And maybe, on some level, it was appealing to those claimants in the class action lawsuit. And now they’re mad about it.

We have nothing but sympathy for those who lost devastating amounts of money in the FTX disaster, but taking those celebrity endorsers to court feels like a far cry from actual justice.

It’s like one of those cases where a baby swallows a marble and the parents sue the grandson of the founder of the toy company. 

We get wanting to hold somebody accountable, but the celebrities who were just looking to make a quick buck ain’t your enemy.

The claimants in the class action lawsuit against the FTX endorsers should take that misplaced frustration and vent it into something positive, like volunteering at a soup kitchen or starting a cult.

Crypto 101

Liquidity Pool: This is where users buy and sell cryptocurrencies on a decentralized exchange.

As an incentive for locking set amounts of crypto into a liquidity pool, users are granted rewards generated by trade activity within the pool.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: We wanted to ask AI to generate a Pixar-style image of Elon Musk and Bob Iger kissing, but it refused. I guess our AI is overworked from writing the rest of the newsletter. Just kidding. But we tried. We asked ChatGPT to write an edition of Coffee & Crypto and the computer started screaming, levitated three inches, and then burst into flames.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.