Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
Coinbase was the lone crypto company with a Super Bowl ad.
And the crowd... was not entirely on board.
Coinbase ran a 60-second spot during Super Bowl LX that looked nothing like a typical Super Bowl ad (and “tricked” a lot of viewers).
Karaoke-style lyrics from the Backstreet Boys’ 1997 hit “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” scrolled across the screen in lo-fi graphics, mimicking a karaoke bar.
Meanwhile, the lyrics were subtly rewritten to weave in Coinbase messaging ("am I Original… am I Secure… am I for Everyone"), and the ad closed with a pivot to the Coinbase logo alone on screen.
The reaction was immediately polarizing.
Multiple videos surfaced on X showing watch party crowds happily singing along to the Backstreet Boys—then audibly booing and groaning the moment Coinbase’s branding appeared on screen.
One viral clip showed an entire room go from a full singalong to dead silence in seconds.
Coinbase leaned in. When one user called the ad “terrible,” the company’s official X account responded: “If you’re talking about it, it worked. Crypto is for everybody.”
Meanwhile, ARK Invest was quite literally selling its Coinbase position. Cathie Wood’s firm dumped over $22M in COIN shares across multiple ETFs on Thursday and Friday.
Maybe they saw the ad in advance.
Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO: “Turning 100M+ screens into karaoke, so the whole U.S. (and many around the world) can sing in unison, is an antidote to polarization and just plain fun. Everybody deserves economic freedom.”
Cat Ferdon, Coinbase CMO: “We’re really trying to effectively use this as the world’s biggest singalong, to show that crypto isn’t just for techies, but really for anyone who knows the lyrics.”
Let’s zoom out.
In 2022, crypto companies flooded the Super Bowl—FTX had Larry David, Crypto.com had Matt Damon telling you fortune favors the brave, and Coinbase’s floating QR code crashed its servers with 20 million hits in one minute.
Fast forward to 2026 and Coinbase is the only one left standing.
But the lone crypto ad isn’t the problem here.
The problem is the reaction from retail.
From jovial singing and laughing to loud boos at the site of Coinbase and/or crypto?
That’s not a great sign for retail coming back any time soon.
Crypto clearly has an image problem with retail, one likely made worse during the Trump administration (and the Trump meme coin debacle).
And with gold & silver + several sectors of the stock market outperforming crypto in 2025, there’s a real question out there as to why retail should care / come back to crypto.
Unfortunately, as strong of a value prop as “economic freedom” delivers, it’s not one that’s resonating with mainstream in the U.S. And why would it? This cohort isn’t being persecuted and doesn’t need that use case (and let’s hope it doesn’t ever).
It seems we need to find the new messaging beyond economic freedom to get retail back on.
And solve crypto’s branding problem once and for all…
