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That Bouncing QR Code Was Really a Super Bowl Ad for Coinbase

The bouncing ad, reminiscent of DVD player logos, allowed viewers to scan the code, taking them to a cryptocurrency website offer.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
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Maybe the weirdest Super Bowl ad contained a bouncing QR code.

Coinbase

Most of this year's Super Bowl commercials featured the familiar voices of celebrities, from Zendaya to Colin Jost. But if you were watching the game this year, you may have been wondering what was up with a mysterious commercial where no one spoke. During the second quarter of the game, a 60-second ad aired showing a bouncing QR code nodding to the bouncing DVD meme. Although the ad didn't feature any dialogue, it did include the song Money, covered by electronic musician Com Truise.

The ad was for cryptocurrency company Coinbase, and if you pulled out your smartphone and focused on the QR code, you were taken to coinbase.com's website. The ad-makers are hoping new customers will register for a Coinbase account using the link, promising $15 in Bitcoin to those who sign up, and also offering a chance to win one of three $1 million prizes in a sweepstakes.

Social media users had fun with the ad.

Wrote one person, "I scanned that QR code and lost $4.5 billion?????"

Said another, "I scanned the QR code and the FBI is demanding me to open my door."

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