Coinbase Super Bowl Ad Caused Disruption on Its Platform

The leading US cryptocurrency exchange advertised itself during the major sports event Super Bowl. Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee said that the marketing move generated “more traffic than we’ve ever encountered,” which briefly disturbed operations. Nonetheless, he assured things were quickly put under control.

The Super Bowl Effect

Similar to other crypto exchanges, Coinbase used the popularity and the massive audience base behind Super Bowl to promote its services. The ad consisted of a colorful bouncing QR code, which upon scanning, led viewers to the company’s promotional website.

Additionally, the trading venue offered $15 worth of free bitcoin to anyone who signed up until February 15 and vowed to distribute a $3 million giveaway to existing customers.

Shortly after, Coinbase revealed that the marketing efforts were “more popular” than expected, causing an outage on the platform.

Oh wow that was more popular than we expected, but don’t worry … we’re all still going to make it! Check your emails if you had a problem and sign up/see terms for our $15 BTC giveaway here → https://t.co/fKHisXZJJc #WAGMI pic.twitter.com/ie7VXPS2xy

— Coinbase (@coinbase) February 14, 2022

In a separate tweet, CPO Surojit Chatterjee confirmed that the reason for the disruption was the unexpected amount of traffic, which Coinbase experienced. He said that the teams “had to throttle traffic for a few minutes.”

Coinbase has been progressing on the crypto scene since the start of the year. In January, it joined forces with Mastercard to simplify purchasing non-fungible tokens. A few days later, the exchange appointed Tobias “Tobi” Lütke as the newest member of its Board of Directors. Last week, Coinbase teamed up with One River Digital Asset Management to offer a separately managed account (SMA) platform for wealth management firms.

Drake’s Bitcoin Bet on Super Bowl

The most significant match in American football and arguably the top sports event of the year in the USA has always attracted celebrities. The Canadian rapper Aubrey Drake Graham, more popular for his stage name -Drake, made a $1.26 million bitcoin bet on Sunday’s game between the Los Angeles Rams (LA Rams) and the Cincinnati Bengals.

The musician used Stake to bet nearly half a million for the LA Rams to win the title, around $400,000 on Odell Beckham Jr. to have over 62.5 receiving yards and $400,000 on the same player to catch a touchdown. The LA team beat its opponent by 23-20, meaning Drake’s bet was partly successful.

Interestingly, Odell Beckham Jr. is also a proponent of the cryptocurrency industry. Not long ago, he partnered with Cash App to receive his $4.25 million salary in bitcoin. Prior to that, the football star dipped his toes in the non-fungible token universe by purchasing a CryptoPunk NFT.