Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) scored a screamer on Sunday by presenting a $7 million commercial during the Super Bowl LVI. The ad, a QR code through which registered users could win $15 in bitcoin, crashed the website for almost an hour by registering about 20 million hits in one minute —experts say this is a historic event.
Q4 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
Coinbase Ad
As reported by CNN Business, crypto exchange Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad became a historic event for crypto after major display and interaction by the sports event’s audience. The ad was aired late at night and according to DownDetector, the system was down for up to an hour amid the user spike.
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase said: “The ad just aired. The shortest link between your TV and a phone is a QR. Thanks to the team that worked hard on the idea and got the site to deal with increased traffic. And welcome everyone new to the crypto economy.”
Coinbase's announcement was the most effective when compared to those of other crypto exchanges —FTXm Crypto.com and eToro also showed up during commercial breaks.
Anto Paroian, chief operating officer at digital assets investment fund ARK36, says, “It is difficult not to feel a little divided over the ‘crypto bowl’ hype. On the one hand, it is fascinating to see how far the crypto space has come in terms of widespread adoption and recognition.”
“On the other hand, the crypto bowl bore an eerie resemblance to the dot-com bowl back in the year 2000 that signaled the peak mania moment of the dot-com stock bubble,” he added.
Significance
The conditions of the digital asset market now are different when compared to the dot-com bowl more than 20 years ago —and there is nothing that could suggest major digital assets like bitcoin are overpriced.
However, Paroian said, crypto assets are inherently volatile and there are many projects in the crypto space that are bound to fail the test of time.
“Unfortunately, retail investors that will plunge headlong into crypto after seeing a Super Bowl commercial may have no means to perform proper due diligence and so run the risk of investing in a project with no sound basis for sustained growth,” he adds.
“For the majority of investors, investing through an intermediary would be a more effective and safer way to obtain exposure to this asset class.”
