The community surrounding the DOT token voted 95% in favour of Conor Daly's $2.1 million sponsorship deal.
Polkadot makes its debut at the Indianapolis 500 after community members voted to select IndyCar racing star Conor Daly as a brand ambassador. The year-long collaboration, announced by Daly's company at a press conference on Tuesday, will begin at the pre-eminent race scheduled for May.
A proposal to sponsor Daly passed with 95.8% approval in a community vote on the Polk Assembly website. The plan, under review from February 19 to March 14, asked for 290,000 DOTs, worth about $2.1 million, to cover the $1.7 million commercial sponsorship fee for a race team.
"The Indy 500 is iconic and is the greatest spectacle in racing - ask any racing driver and it's the race they'd want to win," said Chris Wade, Polkadot community contributor who led the initiative.
"Plus, Conor's Polkadot sponsorship includes a NASCAR truck and a Nitro Cross race, and Conor's experience encompasses them all," added Wade.
Daly competed in the Indy 500 and Daytona 500 in the same year and in the Formula 2 series in Europe.
"He's fast, powerful and adaptable - just like Polkadot," said Wade.
Launched in 2020 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, Polkadot is a multi-chain network that aims to connect different specialist blockchains into one unified network. Currently the 15th largest blockchain by market capitalisation according to CoinGecko, Polkadot (DOT) is up 3.2% for the week and trading at $8.84.
"The fact that thousands of individuals in the Polkadot community - not a corporate marketing team - used their voice to vote and select me as their ambassador is an incredible honour and reflects the power of what a more free and open internet can look like in the future," Daly said in a statement.
The sponsorship deal with Daly, executed via Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Cusick Motorsports, is the latest partnership between the racing and cryptocurrency industries.
In 2021, McLaren Racing tapped Tezos to launch an NFT Formula 1 collection, and 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 the creator of the Sui blockchain, Mysten Labs.
In January, Grammy Award-winning rapper Drake announced a two-year naming deal between Sauber Formula 1 and cryptocurrency gambling site Stake.
"The fact that I'm running not just for a brand name or logo, but representing developers, investors and ordinary people who are building the web of tomorrow, is exciting and overwhelming," Daly added. "We're giving power back to people, while making sports history."
