Coinbase launches an ad campaign to drum up support for a digital penny
Coinbase’s new crypto ad campaign declares that moving the US dollar to a “well-designed blockchain” could turn billions of “clunky” pennies into something valuable again. The ad was introduced as part of National Lost Penny Day on February 12, which began in 1995. It honors the invention of the penny and encourages Americans to find lost pennies around the house.
Coinbase has apparently used this opportunity to contend that stablecoins can help “move money forward” and save individuals and small companies from costly legacy fiat methods. The company stated in a February 12 post on X that $1.2 million in pennies are lost each year and cost almost three times as much to make than they’re worth.
The penny…
$1.2 million worth of them go missing every year.
It costs nearly 3x the value of one just to make one.
And it’s been 167 years since its last update.Thankfully, crypto can move the penny forward.
Right, Abe? pic.twitter.com/FN8jtnPzj3— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) February 12, 2024
Zero Knowledge Consulting founder Austin Campbell argues that small businesses could greatly benefit from “instant settlement, low-cost payments” from stablecoins if fiat is added to the blockchain. “Most merchants operate on very small margins, a lot of small consumer businesses have small margins, and adding even one penny to that margin with improved cost structures is meaningful to them.”
The one-minute Coinbase ad displays a penny with an animated Abraham Lincoln begging for pennies to be transformed into digital. “Being on the penny used to mean something […] now it’s useless barter for petty wishes tossed out like common garbage 120 million times a year even though it’s still technically money,” says the animated Lincoln as it’s sucked into a vacuum cleaner.
Campbell, a self-proclaimed “stablecoin philosopher,” believes that many logistical and technical hurdles still exist in moving fiat online.
Despite decades of trying to discontinue producing them, the US Mint will resume making pennies in 2024. Data from 2017 suggests that about 150 billion pennies worth $1.5 billion are currently in circulation.
