Bravely pioneering the “I-used-to-do-slurs-but-now-I-sell-crypto” pipeline, Matt Damon has been named the brand new face of Crypto.com—the newest transfer within the platform’s technique to convert new customers and mainstream the digital currencies it sells by means of celeb endorsement.

Does trying on the mug of Academy Award-winning actor Matt Damon truly make you wish to shell out for terribly risky decentralized currencies, although? Crypto.com is betting large that it’ll—apparently to the tune of a whopping $100 million. That’s how a lot the platform has reportedly already spent on a advertising and marketing marketing campaign that has Damon slated to star in a string of adverts directed by cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception) that can air in additional than 20 nations.

“I’ve never done an endorsement like this,” Damon advised Bloomberg in an interview. “We’re hoping this is the beginning of a great long-term collaboration.” No shit!

Deep-pocketed crypto lovers are more and more prepared to pay heaping sums to get acquainted faces to publicly endorse their “investments,” and the consequence has been a noticeable uptick in celebrities lending their help to obscure crypto cash and NFTs on social media as in the event that they’re Flat Tummy Tea. In simply the previous few months alone, influencers like Tana Mongeau and Charli D’Amelio lent their well-known visages to digital cash and exchanges on social media, and Kim Kardashian West—the white whale of celeb endorsements—inspired her 260 million Instagram followers to spend money on an virtually fully unknown cryptocurrency known as Ethereum Max.

In a latest op/ed for Slate, the actor Ben McKenzie and journalist Jacob Silverman, who’re at present collaborating on a guide about crypto and fraud, bluntly discuss with “the Hollywoodization of crypto” as a “moral disaster.”

G/O Media could get a fee

Chill out
Get capsules, topicals, tinctures, and extra in a wide range of strengths at a steep markdown.

“And for celebrities’ fans, who likely have far less money to lose, it’s potentially a financial one, too,” Mackenzie and Silverman add. “These rich and famous entertainers might as well be pushing payday loans or seating their audience at a rigged blackjack table.”

While inking a deal as a spokesperson for a rapidly-growing crypto platform that has additionally conscripted the skills of mixed-martial artist Ronda Rousey, basketball star Carmelo Anthony, and astronaut Scott Kelly (to call simply a couple of) might sound much less sketchy than shilling fully unvetted cash and sketchy exchanges, Damon’s marketing campaign makes up for that by being not less than 3 times as unbearable.

Titled “Fortune Favors the Brave,” the minute-long ad spot—reportedly the primary of a number of that can star Damon—is fairly clear about who it’s making an attempt to promote crypto to: “History is filled with almosts—those who almost adventured, those who almost achieved, but for them, it proved to be too much,” Damon says. “Then, there are others—those who embrace the moment and commit.”

Fortune definitely didn’t favor the courageous when Damon not too long ago took a special sort of gamble by admitting to joking round utilizing “the ‘f-slur for a homosexual,’” as not too long ago because the yr we’re at present residing in, however hey—perhaps he’ll have higher luck with being the face of crypto.