Honestly, if you were watching Super Bowl LVI in 2022, you probably remember that weirdly hypnotic moment where a colorful square just bounced around your TV screen for 60 seconds. No celebrities. No high-octane car chases. No talking puppies. Just a floating QR code that looked like a 1990s DVD player screensaver. It was bizarre. It was gutsy. And, as it turns out, it was almost too successful for its own good.
The coinbase super bowl ad basically broke the internet for a minute. Literally.
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Most brands spend millions on A-list cameos from the likes of Larry David or LeBron James (both of whom actually appeared in other crypto ads that same night). Coinbase took a different route. They spent an estimated $14 million on airtime just to show a bouncing link. It was a massive gamble on human curiosity. You see a mysterious box moving toward the corner of the screen, and your brain just screams, "I have to know where that goes."
The Moment the App Died
When that ad aired, something like 20 million people tried to hit the Coinbase landing page in a single minute. That is a staggering amount of concurrent traffic. For context, that’s more than six times the previous engagement benchmarks the company had ever seen.
The result? The app buckled.
If you scanned the code in those first few minutes, you likely saw an error message or a "well, that was more popular than we thought" landing page. It’s kinda funny when you think about it—a tech company spending eight figures to drive people to a broken link. But while the "Coinbase crash" became a meme instantly, the raw data tells a more successful story. Despite the technical hiccup, the ad pushed Coinbase to the number two spot on the App Store.
What was actually behind the code?
For those who didn't scan or couldn't get through, the "Less Talk, More Bitcoin" campaign offered:
- $15 in free Bitcoin for new users who signed up within 48 hours.
- An entry into a $3 million sweepstakes for existing customers.
It was simple. Maybe too simple? Some critics hated it. USA TODAY’s Ad Meter actually ranked it dead last because it lacked the "entertainment" value people expect from the big game. But in terms of pure customer acquisition, it was a masterclass in "performance marketing."
The Drama Behind the Scenes
You'd think a win like this would be all high-fives in the boardroom, but it actually sparked a massive public spat in the advertising world. A few days after the game, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted a long thread claiming that "no ad agency would have done this ad" and that the idea was largely cooked up internally after they ditched "traditional" agency pitches.
The industry didn't take that well.
Kristen Cavallo, the CEO of The Martin Agency, fired back on Twitter, pointing out that her agency had actually pitched very similar concepts to Coinbase months earlier. Eventually, Coinbase CMO Kate Rouch had to clarify that while they did work with an agency called Accenture Interactive (now Accenture Song) to pull it off, the creative process was "seamless." It was a classic case of tech-founder-bravado meeting the reality of how high-stakes marketing actually gets made.
Why We Haven't Seen a Repeat
If the coinbase super bowl ad was such a hit, why didn't we see a sequel in 2023, 2024, or 2025? Well, the "Crypto Winter" arrived pretty fast. By the time the next Super Bowl rolled around, the industry was reeling from the collapse of FTX. Suddenly, flashy ads for digital currency felt a little... "too soon."
In 2026, the strategy has shifted entirely. Coinbase has moved away from $7-million-per-thirty-second TV spots. Now, they're pouring that money into political advocacy and lobbying. They’re trying to move the needle on actual legislation in Washington D.C. rather than just trying to get your cousin to buy $15 worth of Bitcoin during a halftime show.
Lessons from the Bouncing Square
- Curiosity beats production value: You don't always need a CGI dragon if you can make people ask "What is that?"
- Load test your servers: If you’re going to invite 100 million people to dinner, make sure you have enough chairs.
- First-mover advantage is real: The QR code worked because it was the first time we'd seen it on that scale. If a brand tried it today, we’d probably just ignore it.
How to Handle QR Codes in the Wild
Looking back, the ad also raised some interesting security questions. Security experts at the time pointed out that training millions of people to scan a mysterious, unbranded QR code is a bit of a nightmare for cybersecurity. It’s called "quishing" (QR phishing), and it’s a real thing.
If you're scanning codes you see on TV or in public, always check the URL before you enter any login info or connect a wallet. Look for the "lock" icon in your mobile browser and make sure the domain is actually coinbase.com and not some weird lookalike.
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The "Crypto Bowl" era might be over, but that bouncing square is definitely staying in the marketing textbooks for a long time. It proved that in a world of high-definition noise, sometimes the quietest, simplest thing on the screen is the one that gets everyone to reach for their phones.
If you're looking to dive back into crypto after the 2022 hype, your best bet is to skip the "FOMO" ads and start by setting up a secure, non-custodial wallet and actually learning how the underlying tech works before putting any real money on the line.