The Super Bowl, aside from the actual football, was a showcase of cryptocurrency firms tapping celebrities and, in one case, just a QR code, to promote their products.
At least five different crypto firms took ads out during the game: Bitbuy, Coinbase, Crypto.com, eToro and FTX.
The first company to feature crypto, however, was Budweiser, which ran a beer ad that included Nouns non-fungible token eyeglasses from the Ethereum-based Nouns NFT project, according to decrypt.co.
Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX, meanwhile, hired “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David to counter crypto naysayers during 60 seconds in which he played several characters throughout time expressing doubt about such innovations as the wheel, the lightbulb and, finally, the FTX mobile app, according to decrypt.co.
Singapore-based exchange Crypto.com’s Superbowl ad had a young LeBron James talking with an older LeBron James about taking chances, according to the Los Angeles Times.
And Toronto-based crypto trading firm Bitbuy’s spot featured Miami Heat’s Kyle Lowry in ad that ran only in Canada, according to CNN.
Israeli social trading and multi-asset brokerage company eToro, on other hand, decided to forego celebrities and ran an ad featured a confused man looking at his phone, according to decrypt.co.
And crypto exchange Coinbase — which is a “a decentralized company, with no headquarters,” according to the firm’s website — opted to run a 60-second ad that featured nothing but a “floating QR code,” according to decrypt.co.
The code, for anyone who opted to use their phone camera to access it, offered new customers $15 in free Bitcoin, the web publication writes.
The ad was popular enough to crash the app, according to The Verge. Coinbase reported “more traffic than we’ve ever encountered,” which led them to “throttle traffic for a few minutes,” Coinbase chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee tweeted, according to Bloomberg.
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