A new animated commercial from Coinbase portrays former US President Abraham Lincoln appealing to be digitalized on a coin. The video runs for one minute.
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, has launched a new advertising campaign suggesting that the conversion of the US dollar to a “well-designed blockchain” may revive the country’s “clunky” pennies.
On February 12, the campaign debuted in conjunction with National Lost Penny Day, an annual celebration of the penny’s origin that has been a tradition since 1995. The day also encourages Americans to search their homes for misplaced pennies.
But it seems like Coinbase has taken advantage of the situation to say that stablecoins can “carry money ahead” and save individuals and small companies the expense of traditional fiat currencies.
According to an X post by Coinbase on February 12th, the company estimates that $1.2 million worth of pennies go missing every year, with production costs roughly double the value of a cent.
Stablecoins provide “rapid settlement, low-cost payments” that retailers might take advantage of if fiat currency were to migrate to the blockchain, according to Zero Knowledge Consulting founder Austin Campbell in an X Spaces follow-up.
“Improving cost structures by even a cent may make a big difference to most merchants and small consumer firms that run on extremely tiny margins.”
Animated former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln begs for the digitization of pennies in the one-minute commercial, which features a penny.
Lincoln, the animated penny, remarked, “Being on the penny used to signify something… today it’s pointless barter for petty desires tossed out like ordinary waste 120 million times a year even though it’s still legally money, before being sucked up by a vacuum machine.”
“Remember when I used to really pay for things. Instantaneous global travel among humans hassle-free. Old Abe just wishes he could be excellent at being money again,” he added.
Despite attempts to stop production of pennies over the last decade, the U.S. Mint will keep going strong until 2024. Estimates for 2017 put the circulating value of 150 billion pennies at $1.5 billion.
Though, as the self-styled “stablecoin philosopher” Campbell pointed out, there are still logistical and technological hurdles to overcome before bringing financial transactions online.
“The challenging aspect is coordinating the interface between a system that operates for around 25% of the week and settles on a one-day or two-day ahead basis with a live blockchain that I need to conduct money transactions,” he stated.
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