‘Daddy keeps DOT, what the hell is that?’

Conor Daly's name is synonymous with speed. Inherited from his father, the legendary Irish Formula One driver Derek Daly, courses of agility and adrenaline in his veins.

He's become part of the Polkadot family, so members of the community and his developers from Parity Technologies headed to the 108th Indy 500 event on May 26 to watch him race. Daly started 29th out of 33 cars and moved to the front of the pack, leading for 22 laps in impressive fashion.

Driving a DRR-Cusick Motorsports Chevrolet named Rose Polkadot, he helped the DOT brand gain a total TV audience of 13.3 million — and more worldwide — around 10% for the 200-lap race.

To be honest, many are wondering, “What is a polkadot?” They ask. But it's a start.

Daly finished 10th at Indianapolis and won the “Big Mover” trophy.

Chrissy Hill, interim COO for Parity Technologies, said it was an amazing race to watch.

“It was a huge event that was on a lot of people's bucket lists, and I felt very privileged to be a part of that team and community,” Hill said.

Connor is a unique individual, and we are extremely proud to be sponsors, reaching an audience of 13 million people, not including his influence on social media,” she said.

Crypto and auto racing: F1, Indy 500 and Supercars

During the last bull run, crypto has been heavily involved in the world of motorsports. In the year In 2021, crypto exchanges have signed dozens of high-profile, multi-million dollar sponsorship deals with all Formula One teams. In the year At the start of the 2022 season, there were 16 official crypto team sponsors in addition to Crypto.com, which became the main sponsor of the tournament itself.

However, the collapse of FTX and the collapse of the bear market have dried up much of that money, although Crypto.com, a Singapore-based exchange and the first crypto brand to get involved in the sport, is still part of the fabric.

Her name appears on the Grand Prix calendar around all circuits as well as stocking the cars of the Aston Martin Cognizant Racing Team. Cryptocurrency casino and betting platform Cast will feature prominently in the next two years of Formula One thanks to its naming rights for the Sauber F1 car (an announced partnership with Drake).

And OKX in 2010. His sponsorship of McLaren's race cars in 2024 and his relationship with star Aussie driver Daniel Ricciardo have allowed Cointelegraph to negotiate a deal in 2022 and 2023.

Other players, such as Minima Layer-1 blockchain for DPin projects, are involved with the Supercar Series in data tracking for the McLaren GT4 supercar.

However, Polkadot is the only cryptocurrency sponsoring the Indy 500 this year.

Who is Connor Daly?

Daly is the son of Ireland's most successful F1 driver, Derek Daly, who competed in 49 F1 Grands Prix in the late 1970s and early 80s for teams such as Tyrrell and Williams.

But he's not just riding on the coattails of a storied family name. With more than 100 IndyCar races under his belt, including podium finishes and pole positions, Daley has carved his own niche in the fiercely competitive world of motorsports.

He won races at almost every level until IndyCar and won three championships. He has been on stage a lot. He is one of only 29 drivers to have competed in both the Indy 500 and Daytona 500 in the same year and driven in the Formula 2 European Series. Daly is following in his father's footsteps and hosting his own popular podcast, Speed ​​Street.

So how did the flag fly for Polkadot?

“I'm not a technology leader, but I like to understand what's going on. When I first heard about Bitcoin, I was fascinated. Web3 is a huge passion of mine and I love following the smartest people in this space. This is the future of the Internet,” he told the magazine.

I received a long message the other day from Chris Wade in the Polkadot community – a very long message. Polkadot said it was great to be a part of the world's largest attended sporting event. He used a lot of words that I had to look up, but I paid attention because I knew we needed sponsorship to win the Indianapolis 500.

Wade runs an educational platform called Learn Polkadot. Once he got Delin's attention, he worked with other community members to execute the proposal.

Sponsorship is critical in motor racing. A lot of money is needed to make sure the car and the team are at peak performance.

“I'm not arrogant, but I love the Indy 500. I also believe that the exposure that Polkadot can achieve will open the door to a large and entirely new audience. At the same time, I realized that my father had DOT – and I didn't know. How crazy is that?” Dali says.

Polkadot DOT was created by Ethereum founder Gavin Wood in 2015. He had a big run in 2021 and 2022, but has since slipped out of the top 10 and is down 44% since March. So despite having a large treasury under his control of 41 million dot (equivalent to $410 million), he can still benefit from high exposure.

With a market cap of over $9 billion, Polkadot is one of the largest fully decentralized Web3 protocols. A community of DOT holders can support funding proposals through a process where their tokens are locked for a limited period of time. This is part of an onchain decentralized initiative known as OpenGov that will be introduced in mid-2023 and host technical improvements in the Polkadot ecosystem.

OpenGov dramatically increased governance activity, with average referenda and vote rates rising by 1,008 percent and 1,981 percent respectively in the first six months. Treasury bills rose 405 percent.

Daly's proposal, OpenGov referendum #514, received overwhelming support from thousands of voters and pledged $290,000 to cover Daly's race team sponsorship fees and related expenses.

While it is easy for a centralized exchange like Crypto.com to decide to pay for sports sponsorship packages, there are big challenges in doing the same for a decentralized network like Polkadot. In the year As early as 2022, there was hope that the community could find a way to support Spanish soccer giants FC Barcelona, ​​but OpenGov was not established at this time and the bid was delayed.

Hill said Daly was DAO's first major sports sponsor and she wasn't entirely sure if the community would be on board.

“When you're trying to get a community to vote and approve the idea of ​​sponsoring something related to sports, you have to do a lot of education around it and you can't just assume people know. It's a different conversation than direct corporate sponsorship.”

But as it happened, the support was overwhelming.

“He impressed the community with Polkadot, receiving an impressive 95.8% approval rating for his idea,” notes Hill.

The sponsorship is worth $2.1 million, and Daly says it's something he doesn't take lightly.

“It was a proud day to receive this gift and I will do everything, including winning, to return this vote of confidence. Along the way, we are distributing thousands of flyers with QR codes on our hero cards for people to download wallets and start their crypto experience.

Dali is now pretty in pink with polkadot branding. He sees huge potential to bring a whole new audience to crypto through racing.

“My job is to make sure our partnership works for everyone — bringing Polkadot people to the races and getting people to Polkadot to compete. And to win,” Daly says.

A reborn crypto enthusiast

Dali now has cryptocurrency firmly in his blood. In July, he and some of his team hope to travel to Brussels to speak at the Polkadot Decode conference. He said he hopes to meet the people who supported the car and his career.

“Confirming a sponsorship based on a vote is unusual – it's very humbling. It's an honor to meet the community and explain what I do and learn more about the Polkadot community,” Daly said.

“Oh, and did I mention dad has a point? I didn't know until I started this journey. It was meant to be.”

Given how dangerous things were when he was racing, Daly even seems lucky to have found his father.

“Everybody crashes, every driver crashes, and I've been lucky that I haven't crashed in the last six years, and I've never been injured. In my father's time they were all crazy and it was more dangerous.

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Jillian Godsil

Jillian Gosil is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. In the year