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Crypto’s Wild D.C. Ride: From FTX at the Fed to a Scramble for Access

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FTX’s demise and its leader’s upcoming trial haven’t stopped a major lobbying push by the industry this week, but the events have changed its tone.Cryptocurrency lobbyists were riding so high in early 2022 that an FTX executive felt comfortable directly emailing Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, to ask him to meet with Sam Bankman-Fried, the soon-to-be-disgraced founder of the cryptocurrency exchange.It worked.“The day that would work for me is February 1,” Mr. Powell replied to a Jan. 11 email from Mark Wetjen, an FTX policy official and former commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.Mr. Powell’s public calendar shows that he and Mr. Bankman-Fried met as planned. And Mr. Wetjen went on to send the Fed chair two policy papers that FTX had recently published, according to emails obtained through a public records request. “Hope you’re finding these useful!” Mr. Wetjen wrote. “Great to have people like you serving our country.”Mr. Powell has long been cautious about the digital currency industry, but, like many in Washington, he was trying to learn more. FTX was eager to do the teaching. According to newly released records, Mr. Wetjen managed to gain access to a range of federal officials. The records show that Mr. Bankman-Fried secured a virtual meeting in October 2021 with another top Fed official, Lael Brainard, who is now the director of the White House National Economic Council. And public calendars show that Mr. Bankman-Fried went on to meet with another top financial regulator, Martin Gruenberg, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.The crypto industry faces a more difficult landscape in Washington after last fall’s collapse of FTX. Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested on fraud charges in December, and his trial is set to start on Tuesday. The industry has also faced a wide-ranging government crackdown that has sent some crypto entrepreneurs abroad in search of friendlier governments.The companies that have survived crypto’s downturn are still pouring millions of dollars into lobbying, but they are having a harder time gaining access to the halls of power. Some congressional offices have become reluctant to meet with industry representatives. Crypto lobbyists appear less frequently on the public calendars of key officials at the regulatory agencies, and companies have had to shift strategy, straining to distinguish themselves from FTX.“There are a bunch of people who’ve had trouble having meetings,” said Sheila Warren, who runs the Crypto Council for Innovation, an advocacy group. “I have heard from some offices that they will not meet with certain people anymore.”With Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial approaching, the crypto industry is scrambling to change the subject from FTX.Stand With Crypto, a nonprofit backed by the giant digital currency exchange Coinbase, is planning to hold a “fly-in” on Wednesday, bringing in industry players from around the country to talk with lawmakers.“It has been quieter — and more circumspect, in some respects — but the push from the industry hasn’t abated,” said Mark Hays, who tracks cryptocurrency regulation at Americans for Financial Reform. “The crypto industry knows that its star has been tarnished on Capitol Hill, to some extent.”The mood in Congress was friendlier to the industry in early 2022, when FTX was at its zenith: Mr. Bankman-Fried had been positioned as a sort of wunderkind, eccentric and brilliant. But since its collapse, many lawmakers have argued that the industry should be overseen more strictly.“The tone has certainly changed among Democrats — they’re much more skeptical,” said Bart Naylor at Public Citizen, a government watchdog that has been tracking cryptocurrency lobbying.Regulators were more hesitant to embrace crypto firms even in 2022. It was unusual that FTX directly landed a meeting with the Fed chair.Read the emailsA selection of correspondence between FTX and the Federal Reserve, pulled from a series of Freedom of Information Requests submitted by The New York Times.Read DocumentMr. Powell’s only other listed private-sector meetings in February 2022 were with Jane Fraser, the chief executive of Citigroup; David Solomon from Goldman Sachs; Suzanne Clark from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; James Gorman, the chief executive, and Tom Wipf, a vice chair, from Morgan Stanley; Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase; the Business Council, a group of chief executives; and the head of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.Mr. Powell has met with other financial technology companies — he talked with a representative from the payment processor Stripe in March 2022, for example. But he has not listed similar meetings in 2023, based on his calendars released to date.At the meeting with Mr. Bankman-Fried, Mr. Powell and the FTX officials discussed stablecoins as well as central bank digital currencies, a form of electronic cash backed by the government, a person familiar with the matter said.Mr. Powell has met with other financial technology companies in the past. But he has not listed similar meetings in 2023, based on his calendars released to date.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesMr. Wetjen knew many of the agency officials with whom he was setting up meetings from his previous policy role in Washington. He and Mr. Powell had worked on regulatory issues together while Mr. Powell was a Fed governor, for instance.Dennis Kelleher, the head of the regulatory watchdog Better Markets, said FTX had exercised an extensive web of influence in broader regulatory circles, partly through Mr. Wetjen’s connections.“This is the problem: These relationships, which are not visible to the public, pay dividends year after year after year once these guys swing through the revolving door,” Mr. Kelleher said. FTX also flooded Washington with money, which helped it gain a foothold in congressional offices and at think tanks, he and several lobbyists said.The Fed did not provide a comment for this article, nor did Mr. Wetjen. The White House had no comment on Ms. Brainard’s meeting with Mr. Bankman-Fried. An F.D.I.C. spokesman noted that chairs of the agency often held courtesy visits with financial firm leaders.Back in 2022, FTX was trying to shape how the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulated it, as Mr. Wetjen made clear to Mr. Powell in one email from that May.“We have an application before the C.F.T.C. that lays out for the agency how to do so,” Mr. Wetjen wrote of regulating FTX. “All the C.F.T.C. has to do is approve it.”The Fed had little control over such matters, but Mr. Powell does sit on the Financial Stability Oversight Council, an interagency regulatory body that includes the director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.Mr. Wetjen continued: “To the extent the crypto industry comes up in discussions” at the Financial Stability Oversight Council, “we wanted you to have this context and our views at FTX.”The company clearly failed to make much headway with the Fed chair. Mr. Powell supported an October decision by the Financial Stability Oversight Council to further study the kind of setup that FTX and other trading platforms wanted for crypto asset exchanges, rather than greenlighting it.Now, FTX’s demise has only bolstered the arguments of regulators who wanted to approach crypto firms carefully. This year, the Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Coinbase and Binance, FTX’s two largest competitors, amid a broader government crackdown. With Mr. Bankman-Fried out of the picture, other financial technology companies are spending millions to make sure that the future of regulatory oversight favors them.Mr. Hays of Americans for Financial Reform said the industry was hardly being shunned in Washington, because “money talks.”“I still think they’re getting doors opened.” More

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    Inside Kraken’s Culture War Stoked by Its C.E.O.

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    Jesse Powell, who leads the crypto exchange Kraken, has challenged the use of preferred pronouns, debated who can use racial slurs and called American women “brainwashed.”Jesse Powell, a founder and the chief executive of Kraken, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, recently asked his employees, “If you can identify as a sex, can you identify as a race or ethnicity?”He also questioned their use of preferred pronouns and led a discussion about “who can refer to another person as the N word.”And he told workers that questions about women’s intelligence and risk appetite compared with men’s were “not as settled as one might have initially thought.”In the process, Mr. Powell, a 41-year-old Bitcoin pioneer, ignited a culture war among his more than 3,000 workers, according to interviews with five Kraken employees, as well as internal documents, videos and chat logs reviewed by The New York Times. Some workers have openly challenged the chief executive for what they see as his “hurtful” comments. Others have accused him of fostering a hateful workplace and damaging their mental health. Dozens are considering quitting, said the employees, who did not want to speak publicly for fear of retaliation.Corporate culture wars have abounded during the coronavirus pandemic as remote work, inequity and diversity have become central issues at workplaces. At Meta, which owns Facebook, restive employees have agitated over racial justice. At Netflix, employees protested the company’s support for the comedian Dave Chappelle after he aired a special that was criticized as transphobic.But rarely has such angst been actively stoked by the top boss. And even in the male-dominated cryptocurrency industry, which is known for a libertarian philosophy that promotes freewheeling speech, Mr. Powell has taken that ethos to an extreme.His boundary pushing comes amid a deepening crypto downturn. On Tuesday, Coinbase, one of Kraken’s main competitors, said it was laying off 18 percent of its employees, following job cuts at Gemini and Crypto.com, two other crypto exchanges. Kraken — which is valued at $11 billion, according to PitchBook — is also grappling with the turbulence in the crypto market, as the price of Bitcoin has plunged to its lowest point since 2020.Mr. Powell’s culture crusade, which has largely played out on Kraken’s Slack channels, may be part of a wider effort to push out workers who don’t believe in the same values as the crypto industry is retrenching, the employees said.This month, Mr. Powell unveiled a 31-page culture document outlining Kraken’s “libertarian philosophical values” and commitment to “diversity of thought,” and told employees in a meeting that he did not believe they should choose their own pronouns. The document and a recording of the meeting were obtained by The Times.Those who disagreed could quit, Mr. Powell said, and opt into a program that would provide four months of pay if they affirmed that they would never work at Kraken again. Employees have until Monday to decide if they want to take part.On Monday, Christina Yee, a Kraken executive, gave those on the fence a nudge, writing in a Slack post that the “C.E.O., company, and culture are not going to change in a meaningful way.”“If someone strongly dislikes or hates working here or thinks those here are hateful or have poor character,” she said, “work somewhere that doesn’t disgust you.”After The Times contacted Kraken about its internal conversations, the company publicly posted an edited version of its culture document on Tuesday. In a statement, Alex Rapoport, a spokeswoman, said Kraken does not tolerate “inappropriate discussions.” She added that as the company more than doubled its work force in recent years, “we felt the time was right to reinforce our mission and our values.”Mr. Powell and Ms. Yee did not respond to requests for comment. In a Twitter thread on Wednesday in anticipation of this article, Mr. Powell said that “about 20 people” were not on board with Kraken’s culture and that even though teams should have more input, he was “way more studied on policy topics.”“People get triggered by everything and can’t conform to basic rules of honest debate,” he wrote. “Back to dictatorship.”The conflict at Kraken shows the difficulty of translating crypto’s political ideologies to a modern workplace, said Finn Brunton, a technology studies professor at the University of California, Davis, who wrote a book in 2019 about the history of digital currencies. Many early Bitcoin proponents championed freedom of ideas and disdained government intrusion; more recently, some have rejected identity politics and calls for political correctness.“A lot of the big whales and big representatives now — they’re trying to bury that history,” Mr. Brunton said. “The people who are left who really hold to that are feeling more embattled.”Mr. Powell, who attended California State University, Sacramento, started an online store in 2001 called Lewt, which sold virtual amulets and potions to gamers. A decade later, he embraced Bitcoin as an alternative to government-backed money.In 2011, Mr. Powell worked on Mt. Gox, one of the first crypto exchanges, helping the company navigate a security issue. (Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014.)Mr. Powell founded Kraken later in 2011 with Thanh Luu, who sits on the company’s board. The start-up operates a crypto exchange where investors can trade digital assets. Kraken had its headquarters in San Francisco but is now a largely remote operation. It has raised funds from investors like Hummingbird Ventures and Tribe Capital.As cryptocurrency prices skyrocketed in recent years, Kraken became the second-largest crypto exchange in the United States behind Coinbase, according to CoinMarketCap, an industry data tracker. Mr. Powell said last year that he was planning to take the company public.He also insisted that some workers subscribe to Bitcoin’s philosophical underpinnings. “We have this ideological purity test,” Mr. Powell said about the company’s hiring process on a 2018 crypto podcast. “A test of whether you’re kind of aligned with the vision of Bitcoin and crypto.”In 2019, former Kraken employees posted scathing comments about the company on Glassdoor, a website where workers write anonymous reviews of their employers.“Kraken is the perfect allegory for any utopian government ideal,” one reviewer wrote. “Great ideas in theory but in practice they end up very controlling, negative and mistrustful.”In response, Kraken’s parent company sued the anonymous reviewers and tried to force Glassdoor to reveal their identities. A court ordered Glassdoor to turn over some names.On Glassdoor, Mr. Powell has a 96 percent approval rating. The site adds, “This employer has taken legal action against reviewers.”Kraken is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.KrakenAt Kraken, Mr. Powell is part of a Slack group called trolling-999plus, according to messages viewed by The Times. The group is labeled “… and you thought 4chan was full of trolls,” referring to the anonymous online message board known for hate speech and radicalizing some of the gunmen behind mass shootings.In April, a Kraken employee posted a video internally on a different Slack group that set off the latest fracas. The video featured two women who said they preferred $100 in cash over a Bitcoin, which at the time cost more than $40,000. “But this is how female brain works,” the employee commented.Mr. Powell chimed in. He said the debate over women’s mental abilities was unsettled. “Most American ladies have been brainwashed in modern times,” he added on Slack, in an exchange viewed by The Times.His comments fueled a furor.“For the person we look to for leadership and advocacy to joke about us being brainwashed in this context or make light of this situation is hurtful,” wrote one female employee.“It isn’t heartening to see your gender’s minds, capabilities, and preferences discussed like this,” another wrote. “It’s incredibly othering and harmful to women.”“Being offended is not being harmed,” Mr. Powell responded. “A discussion about science, biology, attempting to determine facts of the world cannot be harmful.”At a companywide meeting on June 1, Mr. Powell was discussing Kraken’s global footprint, with workers in 70 countries, when he veered to the topic of preferred pronouns. It was time for Kraken to “control the language,” he said on the video call.“It’s just not practical to allow 3,000 people to customize their pronouns,” he said.That same day, he invited employees to join him in a Slack channel called “debate-pronouns” where he suggested that people use pronouns based not on their gender identity but their sex at birth, according to conversations seen by The Times. He shut down replies to the thread after it became contentious.Mr. Powell reopened discussion on Slack the next day to ask why people couldn’t choose their race or ethnicity. He later said the conversation was about who could use the N-word, which he noted wasn’t a slur when used affectionately.Mr. Powell also circulated the culture document, titled “Kraken Culture Explained.”“We Don’t Forbid Offensiveness,” read one section. Another said employees should show “tolerance for diverse thinking”; refrain from labeling comments as “toxic, hateful, racist, x-phobic, unhelpful, etc.”; and “avoid censoring others.”It also explained that the company had eschewed vaccine requirements in the name of “Krakenite bodily autonomy.” In a section titled “self-defense,” it said that “law-abiding citizens should be able to arm themselves.”“You may need to regularly consider these crypto and libertarian values when making work decisions,” it said.In the edited version of the document that Kraken publicly posted, mentions of Covid-19 vaccinations and the company’s belief in letting people arm themselves were omitted.Those who disagreed with the document were encouraged to depart. At the June 1 meeting, Mr. Powell unveiled the “Jet Ski Program,” which the company has labeled a “recommitment” to its core values. Anyone who felt uncomfortable had two weeks to leave, with four months’ pay.“If you want to leave Kraken,” read a memo about the program, “we want it to feel like you are hopping on a jet ski and heading happily to your next adventure!”Kitty Bennett More

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    Cryptocurrencies Melt Down in a ‘Perfect Storm’ of Fear and Panic

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    A steep sell-off that gained momentum this week starkly illustrated the risks of the experimental and unregulated digital currencies.SAN FRANCISCO — The price of Bitcoin plunged to its lowest point since 2020. Coinbase, the large cryptocurrency exchange, tanked in value. A cryptocurrency that promoted itself as a stable means of exchange collapsed. And more than $300 billion was wiped out by a crash in cryptocurrency prices since Monday.The crypto world went into a full meltdown this week in a sell-off that graphically illustrated the risks of the experimental and unregulated digital currencies. Even as celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and tech moguls like Elon Musk have talked up crypto, the accelerating declines of virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Ether show that, in some cases, two years of financial gains can disappear overnight.The moment of panic amounted to the worst reset in cryptocurrencies since Bitcoin plummeted 80 percent in 2018. But this time, the falling prices have broader impact because more people and institutions hold the currencies. Critics said the collapse was long overdue, while some traders compared the alarm and fear to the start of the 2008 financial crisis.“This is like the perfect storm,” said Dan Dolev, an analyst who covers crypto companies and financial technology at the Mizuho Group.During the coronavirus pandemic, people have flooded into virtual currencies, with 16 percent of Americans now owning some, up from 1 percent in 2015, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Big banks like Northern Trust and Bank of America also streamed in, along with hedge funds, some using debt to further juice their crypto bets.Early investors are still probably in a comfortable position. But the rapid declines this week have been especially acute for investors who bought cryptocurrencies when prices surged last year.The fall in cryptocurrencies is part of a broader pullback from risky assets, spurred by rising interest rates, inflation and economic uncertainty caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Those factors have compounded a so-called pandemic hangover that began as life started returning to normal in the United States, hurting the stock prices of companies like Zoom and Netflix that thrived during lockdowns.But crypto’s decline is more severe than the broader plunge in the stock market. While the S&P 500 is down 18 percent so far this year, Bitcoin’s price has dropped 40 percent in the same period. In the last five days alone, Bitcoin has tumbled 20 percent, compared to a 5 percent decline in the S&P 500.Crypto Experiences a Broad Collapse1-year change in the value of cryptocurrencies

    Prices are through 6 p.m. Eastern time on May 12.Source: CoinMarketCapBy The New York TimesHow long crypto’s collapse might last is unclear. Cryptocurrency prices have typically rebounded from major losses, though in some cases it took several years to reach new heights.“It’s hard to say, ‘Is this Lehman Brothers?’” said Charles Cascarilla, a founder of the blockchain company Paxos, referring to the financial services firm that went bankrupt at the start of the 2008 financial crisis. “We’re going to need some more time to figure it out. You can’t respond at this type of speed.”The origins of cryptocurrencies trace back to 2008, when a shadowy figure calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin. The virtual currency was portrayed as a decentralized alternative to the traditional financial system. Rather than relying on gatekeepers like banks to facilitate commerce, Bitcoin proponents preferred to conduct transactions among themselves, recording each one on a shared ledger called a blockchain.Prominent tech leaders including Mr. Musk, Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter, and Marc Andreessen, an investor, embraced the technology as it grew from a novel curiosity into a cultlike movement. The value of cryptocurrencies exploded, minting a new class of crypto billionaires. Other forms of cryptocurrency, including Ether and Dogecoin, captured the public’s attention, particularly in the pandemic, when excess cash in the financial system led people to day trade for entertainment.Cryptocurrency prices reached a peak late last year and have since slid as fears over the economy grew. But the meltdown gathered momentum this week when TerraUSD, a stablecoin, imploded. Stablecoins, which are meant to be a more reliable means of exchange, are typically pegged to a stable asset such as the U.S. dollar and are intended not to fluctuate in value. Many traders use them to buy other cryptocurrencies.TerraUSD had the backing of credible venture capital firms, including Arrington Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, which invested tens of millions of dollars to fund crypto projects built on the currency. That gave “a false sense of security to people who might not otherwise know about these things,” said Kathleen Breitman, one of the founders of Tezos, a crypto platform.But TerraUSD was not backed by cash, treasuries or other traditional assets. Instead, it derived its supposed stability from algorithms that linked its value to a sister cryptocurrency called Luna.This week, Luna lost almost its entire value. That immediately had a knock-on effect on TerraUSD, which fell to a low of 23 cents on Wednesday. As investors panicked, Tether, the most popular stablecoin and a linchpin of crypto trading, also wavered from its own $1 peg. Tether fell as low as $0.95 before recovering. (Tether is backed by cash and other traditional assets.)The volatility quickly drew attention in Washington, where stablecoins have been on regulators’ radar. Last fall, the Treasury Department issued a report calling on Congress to devise rules for the stablecoin ecosystem.“We really need a regulatory framework,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at a congressional hearing on Thursday. “In the last couple of days, we’ve had a real-life demonstration of the risks.”Stablecoins “present the same kinds of risks that we have known for centuries in connection with bank runs,” she added.Workers installing a cryptocurrency mining data center in Medley, Fla.Rose Marie Cromwell for The New York TimesOther parts of the crypto ecosystem soured at the same time. On Tuesday, Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, reported a $430 million quarterly loss and said it had lost more than two million active users. The company’s stock price has plunged 82 percent since its triumphant market debut in April 2021.A Guide to CryptocurrencyCard 1 of 9A glossary. More

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    Cryptocurrency Seeks the Spotlight, With Spike Lee’s Help

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    The filmmaker’s commercial for a crypto company is one of many recent marketing efforts to make digital cash palatable for newbies.Before Spike Lee accepted cryptocurrency, he turned down Crocs.Years ago, the filmmaker rejected an offer to buy into the Colorado company that makes perforated foam clogs, a decision that caused him to miss out when its stock soared on the strength of the footwear fad.“I wish I would’ve given some money back then,” Mr. Lee said in a recent interview. “Anytime something is new, you’re going to have people who are going to be skeptical. With some of the best ideas, people thought the inventors were crazy.”Now he has taken a leap into another cultural craze, having agreed to direct and star in a television commercial for Coin Cloud, a company that makes kiosks for buying and selling Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Although cryptocurrency is not widely used for transactions, an increasing number of merchants now accept it as payment.The commercial, which he shot last month, is one of several recent marketing efforts meant to broaden the audience for a form of currency that can intimidate people accustomed to cash and credit cards.Mr. Lee, outfitted nattily in a straw hat and gold-tipped cane while filming part of the commercial on Wall Street, led a diverse cast that included his daughter Satchel, the “Pose” actress Mj Rodriguez and the drag queen Shangela. Other shoot locations included Fort Greene Park and the Chillin’ Bar and Grill in Washington Heights, where breakfast patrons craned to catch a glimpse of the director as he filmed a Coin Cloud machine on the sidewalk.“Old money is not going to pick us up; it pushes us down,” Mr. Lee says in the commercial, which portrays the cryptocurrency system as a more accessible and equitable alternative to traditional, discriminatory financial institutions.“The digital rebellion is here,” he says.Cryptocurrency has also been known to intimidate investors, with its extreme volatility and the overwhelming number of virtual alternatives, known as coins. The marketing of this relatively new money has so far been limited mostly to ads on trade websites and targeted pushes on social media, where aficionados swap meme-fueled in-jokes about coin values rocketing to the moon.The industry is increasingly betting that celebrities can help demystify cryptocurrency for the uninitiated.The actor Alec Baldwin offered crisp definitions of cryptocurrency in a series of online ads for the crypto trading platform eToro, and the National Football League star Tom Brady signed on as a brand ambassador for FTX, a crypto exchange that also has a deal to sponsor Major League Baseball.Alec Baldwin is advertising for the cryptocurrency trading platform eToro.eToroThe actor Neil Patrick Harris recently appeared in a TV commercial for the digital currency kiosk operator CoinFlip. “Now anyone, anywhere, can turn cash into crypto!” he declares.EToro and Coinbase, another exchange, collectively spent $22.8 million on advertising last year, nearly double the $12.4 million they shelled out in 2019, according to the research firm Kantar. In recent months, Coinbase hired the Martin Agency, the advertising company behind GEICO and DoorDash.As Madison Avenue fields more inquiries from cryptocurrency clients, agency executives are feeling pressure to better communicate the investment risks, rather than romanticize the industry.“I get very nervous because I start looking at the way that some of the platforms are specifically targeting younger investors,” said Alex Hesz, the chief strategy officer of the advertising giant DDB Worldwide. In the face of frenzied cryptocurrency trading, ad agencies should push for moderation and diversification, he said. “Maximizing is what’s being encouraged here — the idea that this is an amazing asset, and as much as you want to put in, come on and jump on in, the Bitcoin’s lovely,” Mr. Hesz said. “We would never feel comfortable for an alcohol client, or a high-salt or high-sugar or high-fat client, to encourage that level of unequivocal behavior.”Some celebrity endorsements of cryptocurrencies have run into trouble. In 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission cautioned that some famous people were hyping the virtual currency sales known as initial coin offerings without disclosing that they had been paid to promote them. The commission has since settled charges against the boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., the music producer DJ Khaled and the actor Steven Seagal.Social media influencers and e-sports stars have also been linked to shady cryptocurrency schemes, accused of pumping up coins just before their value crashes.Coin Cloud’s chief marketing officer, Amondo Redmond, said he hoped Mr. Lee’s stature would help elevate the industry by delivering something “more than just cool creative, but that is really at the forefront of digital currency becoming mainstream.”“It’s more than just adding a celebrity face,” he said.Mr. Lee, who won an Oscar in 2019 in the best adapted screenplay category for “BlacKkKlansman,” has worked on ads for Capital One, Uber and, most famously, Nike. In the 1980s and 1990s, he directed and starred in commercials for Air Jordans, playing his cinematic alter ego Mars Blackmon opposite Michael Jordan.“That was lightning in a bottle,” Mr. Lee said from a flight bound for the Cannes Film Festival, where he is the first Black person to lead the festival jury.He declined to say how much he had been paid for the Coin Cloud commercial, but noted that “if anyone’s known my body of work over the last four decades, you kind of know about the way I see the world, and when they approached me, it fit in line.”As the coronavirus pandemic continues to highlight financial disadvantages for people of color, Mr. Lee hopes to promote cryptocurrency as neutral to race, gender, age and other identifying characteristics.But he was no expert before filming began, and had to take “a crash course” on crypto. He insisted that the commercial include a line urging viewers to do their own research on virtual money.Mr. Lee said he now planned to invest in virtual coins. He said he would not, however, go anywhere near the digital ownership certificates known as nonfungible tokens.“NFTs, I don’t understand that,” he said, laughing. “I’m old school, so sometimes my children have to turn on the TV — all those remotes and stuff.” More