Crypto ads crackle in a Trump-energized landscape

“Go where dollars won’t," Gemini Trust urges in a new campaign, depicting space travelers visiting woolly mammoths on Mars and skiing down the slope of an asteroid.

Those astral projections are an abrupt departure from Gemini’s somber tone in 2019, when its ads argued that the sector needed to protect investors from crypto chaos through best practices and rules. The slogan then? “The Revolution Needs Rules."

The years in between have indeed been a roller coaster for blockchain companies, from a heady Super Bowl in 2022 stacked with YOLO-riffing crypto commercials, soon followed by a deep slump in crypto prices, a marketing pullback and the collapse of platforms including Celsius along with the spectacular implosion of FTX and fraud conviction of its founder. And the industry has long been shadowed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which waged a campaign to regulate crypto assets as well as bringing lawsuits against prominent exchanges.

Then came the political resurrection of Donald Trump, no longer a crypto skeptic. Bitcoin traded above $100,000 for the first time last Wednesday following a huge rally since Trump’s presidential win. This week, the coin has bobbed around $101,000.

Some of the surviving crypto firms are now revamping their marketing strategies to capture the renewed optimism and position themselves as trustworthy and secure.

Gemini began its latest marketing campaign the day before the election, partly to have a voice no matter who won, according to its global head of marketing, Olivia Santarelli.

“This is the first time that crypto played a major role in an election," she said. “We felt like this was a good time to have our brands get back out there in a moment when crypto was part of a broader national conversation."

The company’s outdoor ads debuted in five major cities, with locations including American Airlines arena in Dallas, Madison Square Garden in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London. They aim to “get people to think about the future in a bright way," Santarelli said.

Gemini said it plans to continue its outreach with at least $10 million in marketing next year, significantly more than it spent in 2024.

Rival exchange Kraken has introduced several initiatives to capitalize on the favorable winds, said Mayur Gupta, its chief marketing officer.

They include a contest with Barstool Sports that began in late November, offering one bitcoin to whoever most accurately guesses the price of the currency on Jan. 3, and a livestream on YouTube and X this month setting bitcoin’s rise to music.

The election has “been a catalyst because of all the optimism it brings to get regulatory clarity, which has been challenging in the past," Gupta said. “It has absolutely unlocked more demand for the next wave of crypto users."

Other crypto firms haven’t gone out of their way to seize the moment with new marketing, but they are thrilled to see their planned efforts sync up with the good vibes.

Coinbase, one of the Super Bowl advertisers in 2022, late last month began an ad campaign arguing in a trio of TV commercials that crypto is for people who might not have thought so, among them, a man who refurbishes vintage trucks, a hardware-store owner suffering from credit-card charge fees and a mom who needs to get money to her son quickly.

The campaign is part of the exchange’s existing multiyear sponsorship with the National Basketball Association and will continue through the holiday season, according to Michael Tabtabai, Coinbase’s vice president of creative.

Crypto.com, another 2022 Super Bowl advertiser, isn’t rolling out new ads now following an earlier shift in strategy toward live sports sponsorships, such as naming rights on the arena in downtown Los Angeles. But it has been looking forward to clearer rules and regulations in the U.S., figuring that even if Vice President Kamala Harris had defeated Trump in November, she would have given the sector a fresh look.

The exchange’s marketing efforts are tied closely to the crypto market and are usually dialed up when the market is doing well, according to Steven Kalifowitz, Crypto.com’s chief marketing officer, adding that the exchange expects to be back on TV soon.

“We saw the election was going to be a watershed moment," Kalifowitz said. “Regardless of who was going to win, we were pretty sure that things were going to shift."

Despite the newly favorable environment, Kraken, Coinbase and Crypto.com said they have no plans to run ads in the coming Super Bowl this February. Gemini declined to comment.

Write to Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com