Even before Odell Beckham Jr. scored the first touchdown (CCC:BTC-USD) – it was clear: Crypto was going to be the REAL winner of Super Bowl LVI.
Several crypto ads, of course, aired as the Cincinnati Bengals took on the Los Angeles Rams. Their vibe was much more light-hearted, versus the melodrama of the earlier Crypto.com (CCC:CRO-USD) (and of the 5G ads last year). And two of the crypto commercials even made it into the top five of
FTX (CCC:FTT-USD) placed #4 by cleverly framing crypto haters () as being on the wrong side of history. This briefly catapulted FTX’s crypto trading app to .
Coinbase’s (NASDAQ:COIN) commercial, on the other hand, looked…more like a screensaver. “Running a leisurely 60 seconds, the spot and its hypnotic music became increasingly curiosity inducing until finally many of us had to pull out our phones and scan” Coinbase’s color-changing QR code, noted AdWeek, which deemed it the #1 ad of the night.
By simply running this QR code, Coinbase recruited so many viewers to claim their “signing bonus” (shown below), …but also propelled Coinbase to #2 in the App Store – where it’s holding strong today.
Side note: QR codes like these – but from less reputable sources – can be malicious. Outside of Super Bowl ads, QR codes promising free money are often , warns the FBI… And to deposit money into a fake (but very similar) version of real crypto sites. So, scan with care, and always check the URL before you proceed!
Meanwhile, the Coinbase outage provoked a lot of jokes at its expense, like the one below from rival Trust Wallet (CCC:TWT-USD). But they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and given all the app downloads, “they” might be right again.
Coinbase marketing be like 😑
— Trust Wallet (@TrustWallet)
Outside of the crypto community, another common reaction was: “This is another moment; the dotcom bubble burst weeks later, so crypto is doomed.”
Never mind that other
included E*TRADE, WebMD, and WebEx. And even MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) has had a huge second act – thanks largely to CEO Michael Saylor’s embrace of
The 2000s were a wild ride for everyone; no denying that! But those were just a few examples of the “dotcom” companies going strong today. And just as it wasn’t fair to equate Pets.com with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), or eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY)…
As I’ve written in the past, Pets.com was also operating in a very different economy than, say, Chewy (NYSE:CHWY) today. Ryan Selkis of the crypto data service Messari.io makes a similar point in the below tweet:
https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1493052401909125120
The crucial move here is to steer your capital into the right cryptos. And that’s what our InvestorPlace analysts are working for on a daily basis.
Bitcoin pioneer Charlie Shrem is one of them – and Charlie didn’t want any confusion about the opportunity, because it’s such a big deal for him to say anything is going to be bigger than bitcoin! However, that’s just what he does in his video.
In Case You Missed It…
- exclusively for attendees of “Rolling Stone Live” during the Super Bowl festivities in L.A.
- baseball team for $38 million!
- (the U.S. state!)
- – although
- The Meta Platforms formerly known as
On the date of publication, Ashley Cassell did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines. To have more news from The New Digital World sent to your inbox,
Ashley Cassell
Contributing Editor,
