Racing into Controversy? CoinsPaid Shifts Gears with Barrichello Sponsorship Amid Regulatory Scrutiny

tamir
Tue, 01 Apr 2025 19:19:16 +0000
Crypto Payments, A.R. Merkeleon, CoinsPaid, Cryptoprocessing, Max Krupyshev

CryptoProcessing by CoinsPaid has launched a new motorsport sponsorship campaign with racing prodigies Eduardo and Fernando Barrichello. But behind the glossy Web3 marketing lies a history of regulatory red flags and allegations of facilitating illicit payments. As FinTelegram has repeatedly reported, CoinsPaid is far from a neutral fintech innovator—it is a company entangled in the darker corners of the online gambling and scam ecosystems.

Key Findings:

CoinsPaid’s New Sponsorship Deal: CoinsPaid has named Eduardo and Fernando Barrichello as brand ambassadors for 2025, associating the crypto payment brand with high-speed motorsport glamour.

Marketing vs. Reality: While the sponsorship positions CoinsPaid as an innovative leader in Web3 finance, ongoing FinTelegram investigations raise questions about its history of processing payments for scams and illegal gambling platforms.

Legacy Whitewashed by Sponsorship: The Barrichello name adds polish to a brand under fire—yet the association may risk reputational damage if regulatory scrutiny intensifies.

Motorsport’s Risky Dance with Crypto: The deal reflects a growing trend of crypto firms using sports sponsorships to gain legitimacy while avoiding scrutiny of their actual operations.

FinTelegram Holds Evidence: FinTelegram has reported extensively on CoinsPaid’s past, including insider statements and leaked documents linking the payment processor to fraud-facilitating platforms.

Financial Intelligence Narrative:

In what appears to be a calculated PR maneuver, CryptoProcessing by CoinsPaid, the Estonian crypto payment processor with a long shadow of controversy, has announced a flashy new partnership with racing brothers Eduardo and Fernando Barrichello. The move marks CoinsPaid’s latest attempt to rebrand itself as a high-performance, forward-looking fintech innovator—despite mounting evidence of its entanglement in high-risk and outright illegal activities.

CEO Max Krupyshev compared the firm’s role in digital finance to the technical evolution of motorsport, drawing parallels between “split-second decisions at over 200 mph” and fast blockchain transactions. Yet, the real race for CoinsPaid may not be on the track, but in the regulatory arena.

FinTelegram and other investigative platforms have repeatedly exposed CoinsPaid’s role as a payment facilitator for unlicensed online casinos, fraudulent brokers, and high-yield investment schemes. The processor has become a favorite among cybercrime networks due to its crypto-native infrastructure and lax compliance controls. In many cases, CoinsPaid has served as the payment back-end for operations explicitly banned or penalized by regulators in Germany, Australia, and other jurisdictions.

Furthermore, CoinsPaid operates under the brand of CryptoProcessing, managed through the Austrian entity A.R. Merkeleon GmbH, which shares strong historical and personal ties with the SoftSwiss Group—an ecosystem identified in both FinTelegram and mainstream investigations as deeply embedded in unlicensed gambling and gray-area finance.

Despite these ongoing issues, CoinsPaid is leveraging its new sponsorship with the Barrichello brothers to rehabilitate its image. The sons of Formula 1 legend Rubens Barrichello bring a recognizable legacy, youth appeal, and media exposure—elements CoinsPaid likely hopes will deflect attention from its problematic past.

The sponsorship raises broader concerns about motorsport’s growing relationship with crypto firms. While racing has long courted innovation and disruption, the industry now risks serving as a marketing cloak for opaque or legally questionable fintech operations.

Actionable Insight:

The strategic rebranding of CoinsPaid through high-profile sponsorship should not distract regulators, compliance professionals, or investors from the firm’s regulatory history. CoinsPaid’s integration into the motorsport world must be scrutinized as part of a broader tactic of sportswashing—the use of high-visibility partnerships to shield reputational and legal vulnerabilities.

This case reinforces the urgent need for compliance frameworks in sponsorship due diligence, especially when crypto-native companies with known legal risks target youth-facing and mainstream platforms like motorsport.

Call for Information:

FinTelegram continues to investigate CoinsPaid, CryptoProcessing, A.R. Merkeleon, and their associated networks. We invite insiders, industry whistleblowers, and compliance officers with knowledge of their operations, clients, or payment schemes to contact us confidentially via Whistle42.com. Your information is vital in helping us hold the industry accountable and promote transparency in the digital finance ecosystem.

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