Crypto rivals Coinbase and FTX spent big on these two Super Bowl ads (first two videos embedded below). Clearly, the Coinbase ad (with its floating, corner-seeking QR code) was incredibly successful, as it saw the Coinbase ad shoot from 186th place on the App Store all the way to 2nd place. More importantly, it overwhelmed the Coinbase servers:

@coinbase just saw more traffic than we've ever encountered, but our teams pulled together and only had to throttle traffic for a few minutes. We are now back and ready for you at https://t.co/ZUJqRlnZPH. Humbled to have been witness to this. #WAGMI

— surchatt.eth (@surojit) February 14, 2022

Interestingly, from all the NFL and Super Bowl crypto hype, the NFL prohibits crypto, as covered in The Athletic:

“Clubs are prohibited from selling, or otherwise allowing within club controlled media, advertisements for specific cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, other cryptocurrency sales or any other media category as it relates to blockchain, digital asset or as a blockchain development company, except as outlined in this policy,” according to the new guidelines, as read by a team official, who requested anonymity.

Another ad that stuck out in yesterday’s ad-apalooza was the Meta/Facebook Oculus ad (Third embed below). Quality of the ad aside, it’s interesting that the Facebook brand is completely absent (gives me a feeling that peak Facebook is in the past) and that Meta is betting its future on its take on the future of VR.

Whets my appetite to see what AR/VR device Apple has up its sleeve. Four months until WWDC.