Four years after its viral QR code commercial, crypto exchange Coinbase has made its return to the Super Bowl, this time leaning into nostalgia with a karaoke-style ad inspired by the Backstreet Boys.
The one-minute spot, which aired during the most-watched sporting event in the US, primarily featured animated text flashing the lyrics to the boy band’s 1997 hit, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”
Coinbase chief marketing officer Catherine Ferdon said in a statement that the campaign was designed to “bring people together through a shared experience that reflects how much the crypto community has grown.”
It marked Coinbase’s first Super Bowl appearance since 2022, when the exchange aired its now-iconic 60-second commercial featuring a color-changing QR code bouncing around the screen like a DVD screensaver.
That ad sent viewers to a promotion offering $15 worth of Bitcoin to new Coinbase users. The response was so overwhelming that it briefly crashed the company’s website and reportedly generated around 20 million visits in a single minute.
A polarizing ad — and Coinbase says that’s the point
Coinbase’s latest Super Bowl spot sparked sharply divided reactions online. Some users on X said the ad drew boos, citing a market downturn and crypto’s perceived links to the Trump administration, while others applauded its simplicity and stick-in-the-head execution.
“If you’re talking about it, it worked,” Coinbase replied on X to one user who called the ad “terrible.”
Criticism continued to roll in, with one X user claiming “the room I’m in ERUPTED in boos when we found out it was a Coinbase ad,” while Axios reporter Andrew Solender said a viewing party he attended “burst into groans and shouts of ‘fuck you’” when the commercial aired.
Still, not everyone hated it. Ethereum Foundation engineer Chase Wright said that “half of the people at the party I was at were singing along and laughed when it was Coinbase,” while another X user described the ad as “lowkey genius,” arguing that viewers would “100% remember Coinbase if they ever want to buy crypto.”
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also weighed in on X, defending the campaign by noting that “most people half-watch commercials — buzzed, in a loud room, with lots of people. It takes something unique to break through.”
