There’s no question that cryptocurrencies have been having a critical year in 2022. With what unfolded at FTX, and the steep falls most, if not all, cryptocurrencies have witnessed, it would be difficult to argue otherwise. But what most people didn’t know is that NASCAR had an enormous hand in the fall of one coin.

The Let’s Go Brandon (LGB) coin is a cryptocurrency based on the ERC20 blockchain. Like a lot of its brethren, meaning meme-inspired coins, it had a temporary period of gains but has since sunk badly, bringing losses for the thousands of common people who invested.

The LGB coin also goes by the moniker of America’s Free Speech Coin. An anti-Joe Biden chant was the basis of its creation. While the seemingly innocuous term might not look so, it does hint toward an offensive chant that is backed by those who do not support the current POTUS.

This coin also had a NASCAR linkage to it in the latter part of last year. In December 2021, NASCAR approved the coin as its official sponsor, which would have brought the coin substantial amounts of publicity.

However, as it later turned out, NASCAR hadn’t given the green light for the sponsorship proposal. NASCAR said, as it canceled the sponsorship, that the approval had come from an employee acting out of their place. He didn’t have the requisite authority to make that decision.

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NASCAR’s journey with crypto has not been beneficial for the organization, and this recent scandal only rubs salt in those wounds.

NASCAR sponsor also led to the fining of Congressman

The saga of the LGB coin and NASCAR doesn’t end with the denial of the sponsorship application. It has since grown into a much bigger issue, which also involves a Republican Congressman.

The LGB coin came back in the news after the House Ethics Committee fined North Carolina’s Congressman for the 11th Congressional District, Madison Cawthorn, $15,000 for flouting conflict of interest rules. They found that during the NASCAR-LGB coin sponsorship saga, Cawthorn promoted the coin on multiple occasions through social media posts. He also purchased $150,000 worth of the coin.

As a result of the (initial) announcement as NASCAR sponsor, the coin rocketed to higher prices. Cawthorn, resultantly, made a profit of 11% on his initial investment. The Committee ruled that Hawthorn would be required to pay $15,000 in fines – however, that must be paid to charity. 

Congressman Cawthron decided to split that amount between a gun lobby and a medical center. Meanwhile, the coin has plummeted by more than 99% from its all-time highs and is no longer in demand.

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While stories like this in the crypto world are not rare and few, when it comes to NASCAR, this is a first. Can you recall something similar that NASCAR was embroiled in?