When New York’s teams play someday at the soon-to-be named Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, their fans and players who live in the Empire State will be able enjoy all the stadium has to offer, except for one thing: its sponsor’s services.
Like a number of popular cryptocurrency brokers and wallets, digital-currency company Crypto.com doesn’t offer services to residents of the state of New York. The state’s financial-services regulator in 2015 adopted rules for a special license for “virtual currency” firms, known as a BitLicense, and Crypto.com isn’t listed as having one.
The same goes for playing the Miami Heat at FTX Arena, sponsored by the U.S. affiliate of digital-asset exchange FTX. The brand name is familiar to Major League Baseball fans, appearing as a patch on umpire uniforms. The website of FTX US details jurisdictions where it won’t provide services to personal accounts. New Yorkers are there along with the populations of Cuba, Iran, Crimea and North Korea.
FTX and Crypto.com have both said that they are aiming to be available in New York someday, joining the likes of Coinbase Global and Robinhood Markets, as well as SoFi Technologies, sponsor of the stadium where the two Los Angeles NFL teams play.
Given New York sports teams’ current championship drought, though, maybe they would benefit from playing in their own league for a while.