Pudgy Penguins, by Toikido, are displayed at the 2023 Toy Fair, in New York’s Javits Center, Monday, Oct. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
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“In 2025, there was one influencer who we paid $30,000 to promote an exchange. And he got one sign up,” Rhys McKay said in an interview. “Like, globally known guy, one sign up.”
A few years earlier, that spend would have paid off. Before founding the short-form video agency Lumina Clippers, McKay spent five years running a crypto marketing firm that he says put $30 million into influencer campaigns. His firm used to pay a crypto influencer “forty thousand dollars for a tweet,” and in 2021 and 2022, he says, “if they were promoting a token or an…
