Coinbase spent millions on Super Bowl ad with QR code. Then their website crashed

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase debuted a new commercial featuring a bouncing QR code during Sunday Super Bowl that gained massive traction to an extent that its website’s servers crashed due to massive user influx. The Super Bowl is the annual playoff championship game of the National Football League (NFL).
What makes the Super Bowl so appealing for advertisers is that it has the largest live television audience and is one of the rare TV events where people don’t skip the ads. Several brands are making the most out of this opportunity buying 60-second ads which is for worth of millions. According to NBC, a 30 second ad on SuperBowl Sunday 2022 costed $6.5 million.
The one-minute commercial Coinbase showed a QR code bouncing from corner to corner of your television screen, similar to how a DVD Video logo appears when a movie is paused. The advertisement didn’t have any extravagance which probably is why  it grabbed everyone’s attention. There were no people, no brand name just a QR code display. It should be noted that Coinbase shelled out $13 million to attract the spectators’ attention—all for a QR code.

But, what happens if you scan the QR code? Upon scanning, people were directed to Coinbase’s promotional website where the users were offered $15 worth of Bitcoin just for creating an account with Coinbase. However, due to massive influx of users on Coinbase website, the website crashed showing an unexpected error, as reported The Verge.
According to Surojit Chatterjee, Coinbase’s Chief Product Officer, “Coinbase saw more traffic than we’ve ever encountered, but our teams pulled together and only had to throttle traffic for a few minutes,” he said on Twitter.
On Coinbase’s official Twitter handle, the company said,  “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.”
Meanwhile, this year cryptocurrency companies made a major presence with multiple companies including Crypto.com and FTX  pomroting either cryptocurrency exchanges, NFTs, while ads Bud Light and Turbo Tax also mentioned cryptocurrency. The game, in which the Los Angeles Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals, was played at LA’s SoFi Stadium, named after another digital asset-capable exchange.

Interestingly, Meta was quick to jump onto Coinbase’s viral QR code bandwagon. The company tweeted its own bouncing QR code that linked out to the company’s Foo Fighters-led VR afterparty it has planned for after the game.
Earlier, this year 17 crypto firms including Coinbase, Huobi Tech, BitMEX, Bitstamp, and Securrency launched a new group called the “Crypto Market Integrity Coalition” (CMIC) to make the overall crypto market a safe space for conducting business.