Coinbase's ad backfires terribly. But it’s genius! 👏; A startup threatening Visa & MasterCard to become obsolete? 🤔; A single API layer for open finance in Southeast Asia🇮🇩

Good Morning FinTech, February 15

Good day Everyone,

And happy Tuesday! I hope Monday wasn’t too hard for you. Even if it was, you will definitely get a boost today because these 3 FinTech stories are some of the most interesting ones this month:

Coinbase's ad backfires terribly. But it’s genius! 👏

Super Bowl 🍚 Crypto exchange giant Coinbase briefly crashed on Sunday after an eccentric Super Bowl ad sparked a surge in traffic. But that’s genius. Continue reading.

The ad 👉 The 60-second ad featured a floating and colorful QR code bouncing around the screen, similar to a bouncing DVD logo. The QR code directed people to a link offering $15 in Bitcoin to those who sign up for a Coinbase account before February 15. Meanwhile, existing users had the chance to opt-in for a chance of winning a $3M prize.

The crash 💥 The ad proved so popular that the app crashed for about an hour.

To be more precise, Coinbase had more than 20M hits on its landing page in one minute and the engagement was 6 times higher than previous benchmarks. It was hence historic and unprecedented.

As an effect, the Coinbase app also skyrocketed in popularity, rising from 186th place to 2nd on Apple's App Store.

The effect 🙌🏼 Given how the major sporting event regularly attracts more than 100M viewers, critics argued that Coinbase really should have seen this coming. In fact, many said that all would have been fine if Coinbase would have handled the load.

I disagree with that and actually believe this is probably one of the best marketing campaigns the FinTech industry has ever seen. Here’s why👇🏼