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G2 Esports mid laner Caps has locked in LeBlanc for the team’s 2026 Mid-Season Invitational opener against Top Esports on July 3. That’s a League of Legends champion pick, not a token listing. But the match itself is worth examining through a different lens entirely: what G2’s continued crypto sponsorship tells us about the state of web3 money in competitive gaming.
While the rest of the esports industry has watched crypto sponsors vanish, G2 still has Betpanda, a crypto-focused betting platform, plastered on its CS team jerseys. The partnership was announced in December 2025. And in a landscape where reports from mid-June 2026 point to a visible decline in crypto sponsorships across major events like Valorant Masters and IEM Cologne, that deal looks increasingly like an outlier rather than a trend.
The match itself: Caps and the LeBlanc factor
Caps, whose real name is Rasmus Winther, is one of the most decorated European players in the game’s history. He’s a multiple-time LEC champion and reached 100 international wins during MSI 2025.
LeBlanc is an assassin mage known for burst damage and deception. Caps has a 68.9% win rate on LeBlanc across 61 career games. That’s not a comfort pick. That’s a statement pick against one of China’s strongest teams.
Top Esports, representing the LPL (China’s premier league), are no strangers to international best-of-5 pressure. For platforms like Betpanda, high-profile international clashes between Europe and China generate some of the largest viewership and wagering activity in competitive League of Legends.
Crypto sponsorships in esports: the great contraction
The collapse of FTX in late 2022 sent shockwaves through every industry it touched, and esports sponsorships were no exception. Teams that had signed multi-year deals suddenly found themselves scrambling for replacement revenue.
As of mid-2026, industry analyses indicate that visible crypto sponsorships at major esports tournaments have declined significantly. Events like Valorant Masters and IEM Cologne, which once featured prominent crypto branding, have seen that presence fade.
G2’s arrangement with Betpanda stands out precisely because it still exists. The partnership is narrowly scoped, appearing on CS jerseys rather than across every G2 property. It’s targeted at the sports betting vertical specifically, not a broad brand awareness play.
What this means for investors watching crypto and esports
For Betpanda, a crypto betting platform, sponsoring a top esports organization makes obvious sense. The audience overlap between competitive gaming viewers and crypto-native bettors is substantial.
The risk is concentration. If crypto sponsorship in esports narrows to only betting platforms, the industry loses the diversity of partners that once included exchanges, NFT marketplaces, and blockchain gaming studios. A narrower sponsor base means more vulnerability if regulations targeting crypto betting tighten, which is an active conversation in multiple jurisdictions.
G2 Esports is one of Europe’s most valuable esports brands, so it has leverage in negotiations. Smaller orgs without G2’s brand cachet or a player like Caps to draw eyeballs may find that the crypto sponsorship well has simply dried up for them entirely.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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