Data: Crypto App Downloads Decline Despite Super Bowl Hype

In spite of the surge of Super Bowl ads for cryptocurrency trading platforms, often featuring huge stars, there hasn’t been a flood of new users on the platforms’ apps, Bloomberg reported Monday (Feb. 14).

Among the platforms involved were Coinbase, FTX and Crypto.com, which all released ads during the Super Bowl. The exchanges also saw a fall in U.S. app store downloads over the week prior to Sunday.

Coinbase reported it was the second highest slot on Apple’s rankings of the top free apps, though the meaning of this isn’t well understood. Some analysts say it’s based on usage and velocity of downloads.

Coinbase released a minute-long ad of a blank screen and a moving QR code, which, if scanned, could offer more information and a giveaway of $15 in bitcoin for new users, if used within 48 hours of the ad airing.

That ad got 20 million hits to the Coinbase page, which crashed the site for a time.

Though there wasn’t an immediate surge in new users, an Apptopia report said there still might be a boost coming from the Apple app store ranking.

“While Coinbase is one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, outside of the crypto world, many people still haven’t heard of it,” Owen Lau, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co Inc., said in a note. “Immediately after the release of this ad, there was lots of discussion about this commercial on social media. Some people liked it, and some people hated it. But we believe Coinbase achieved its mission: getting massive attention.”

PYMNTS wrote that there’s a certain psychology behind Super Bowl snacks, with researchers finding some interesting gems — one of them being that there’s a correlation between someone’s eating habits and the team that won the Super Bowl.

Read more: Super Bowl Apps Make Big Game Filling and Fun

Rachel Herz, a neuroscientist, said this reveals itself the Monday after, as “fans who were pulling for the team that lost are likely to keep making unhealthy food choices.”