LA wildfires threaten crypto companies in southern California

Historic wildfires have swept across the greater LA area in southern California. So far, the massive fires have collectively burned more than 15,000 acres and forced the evacuations of over 100,000 residents.

Fueled by high winds and months of drought, the Pacific Palisades fire near the beach communities of Santa Monica and southern Malibu has already burned over 1,000 structures. The inland Eaton fire near Pasadena has also burned hundreds of structures.

On Wednesday night, an offshoot Sunset fire sparked evacuations in the Hollywood Hills. Soon, news watchers lost track of the many fires in the inland empire and other southern California areas, including the Hurst, Lidia, Bridge, Turbine, and Viewline fires.

As well as threatening millions of California residents, the rapidly spreading blazes are threatening several crypto companies and prominent community members. Indeed, a number have already lost their homes and belongings, including precious hardware wallets.

Unbelievably, Polymarket is accepting and advertising crypto bets on the deadly outcome of the wildfires.

Crypto companies near the LA wildfires

Workers at the Santa Monica Bitcoin Office are directly south of the raging Palisades and Sunset fires. Several Swan Bitcoin workers who hosted the Pacific Bitcoin conference in Santa Monica are also immediately south of the blaze.

Blockchain service provider BlockDaemon is headquartered in Los Angeles, as is SuperVerse, another crypto game developer. Blockchain-based ID and tokenization company Spring Labs is headquartered in nearby Marina del Ray.

Some companies have been more fortunate. The Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles has, so far, been guarded from flames. The wildfires have also spared the DaBank and Jungla crypto entertainment venuesin Hawthorne and North Hollywood, respectively.