NBA star Lebron James and his Lebron James Family Foundation (LJFF) have partnered with cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com to launch a series of educational and job training initiatives about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and related technologies.
“Through this partnership, I PROMISE students and families will get a strong foundation in Web3 and the innovations behind blockchain-based decentralized applications powering the future of many sectors from finance to media to art,” per Crypto.com’s Friday statement.
LJFF’s “I PROMISE” program serves more than 1,600 students and their entire families with family programming and fundamental resources to help them be successful in school and beyond. Initiatives of the program include the I PROMISE School, which has created a new model for public education; I PROMISE Institute, which provides resources for higher education and family supports; I PROMISE Village that serves transitional housing; I PROMISE Housing, offering long-term, affordable housing; and House Three Thirty, where job training and financial health programming efforts are explored.
“Blockchain technology is revolutionizing our economy, sports and entertainment, the art world, and how we engage with one another. I want to ensure that communities like the one I come from are not left behind,” James said, per the statement.
This is the latest push by Crypto.com to boost its brand into the mainstream. In November, Crypto.com paid over $700 million to replace Staples as the title sponsor of downtown Los Angeles’s arena, where James and the Los Angeles Laker play their home games. The company also signed a deal with Matt Damon to be the brand’s face in its latest advertising efforts.
Crypto.com’s efforts and billionaire investments seem to be misallocated, however. Earlier this month, the exchange suffered a hack that resulted in 400 customer accounts being compromised and millions of dollars lost. Up until the acknowledgment of the security breach, Crypto.com’s communication was criticized for being vague and unclear. The Verge reported that official messaging from the company at the time referred to a security “incident,” and an early Twitter post mentioned only that a small number of users were “reporting suspicious activity on their accounts.”
