The Game Played On. The Future Was in the Ads. Pasifika and Crypto in 2025

While fans tuned in for hits and highlights, crypto quietly claimed prime time - and most missed it.

Anyone who watched the broadcast of the hugely celebrated recent Toa Samoa vs MMT Tonga National Rugby League Pacific Championship game in Brisbane would’ve either noticed this — or completely missed it.

The video replays and highlights were preceded by Swyftx crypto ad stings.

Bitcoin. Ethereum. Front and centre.

Yet in my constant advocacy of this space over the past few years, most people in my Moana Pasifika community still dismiss it as a scam, a Ponzi scheme — a passing fad that will disappear.

So while many in our community remain skeptical, the rest of the world is quietly moving forward in front of our faces.

Blockchain is no longer “on the way.”

It’s already here — going mainstream. Embedded. Inevitable.

Literally moving into sporting and financial spaces our Moana Pasifika diaspora know well.

Visa and Mastercard are literally building with blockchain now.

Western Union — used heavily by our diaspora and families for remittances — is now partnering with Solana.

Global financial infrastructure is being rebuilt in real time.

And yet still — lack of interest or urgency from our institutions and leadership.

As artists, our job has never been to chase trends —

It’s to anticipate shifts, to imagine the unseen, to acknowledge what was, what is, and what could be.

To predict what’s coming, and to help communities make sense of it.

To make art that demonstrates it or comments on it.

Many of the spaces I’ve advocated for crypto and blockchain in — creative institutions, cultural orgs, education — are understandably tethered to centralized systems and funding.

Systems that rely on predictability and the status quo for their survival.

That’s why the pushback against decentralisation was understandable and expected.

But they seriously, really need to pay attention.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The global collapse in trust across centralised media, governments, and Big Tech has sparked this opposite force of decentralisation.

Bitcoin — the most decentralised technology on the planet — is now mainstream in front of Pacific audiences, and yet most will still dismiss it.

We’re not just watching the future unfold — We’re watching it try to include us.

The question is:

Will we get in the game — or just watch the replays?