Crypto advertising is often characterized by big promises and technological jargon. Yet, Coinbase’s “Everything Is Fine” campaign stands out for its wicked humor, cultural savvy, and unapologetic take on inflation, the housing market, and the general state of the United Kingdom in 2025.
Released on Thursday, Coinbase’s dark satire was quickly spotlighted by Ad Age for its wit and originality, marking a creative shift in how financial brands tackle the everyday anxieties facing consumers.
Coinbase presents a satirical mirror on financial reality
Created in partnership with the agency Mother and directed by the acclaimed Steve Rogers, “Everything Is Fine” coincides with a moment of heightened public awareness about economic instability.
The commercial opens with reassuring narration (“Everything is fine”), but the imagery starkly and comically tells a drastically different story: a leaking roof collapses, houseplants wilt, wallpaper peels, and rats scurry around amid the garbage. Each visual is a metaphor for inflation, the state of the economy, and the fragility of financial security, realities that traditional institutions rarely confront so openly.
Unlike most crypto ads, “Everything Is Fine” doesn’t shout about technological utopia or imminent riches. Instead, it leans into the quiet dread and surreal comedy people feel when their money seems to be shrinking in value while daily life gets more expensive. The result is a campaign that’s instantly relatable and eerily memorable.
Creative strategy: humor and honesty
Instead of scaring viewers or bombarding them with technical jargon, Coinbase and its creative team use deadpan humor and universal symbols of decline (filthy streets, dirty clothes) to capture what so many consumers feel: that official reassurances don’t always match their lived experience.
Perhaps the most on-point moment of the ad is the part where an affluent couple in a convertible pulls up, saying:
“We’re off to Dubai, it’s time to jump ship.”
This is a commentary on the exodus of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) from the UK, with an estimated 16,500 millionaires leaving the country in 2025 so far, according to Henley & Partners. These figures mark the steepest annual increase in millionaire outflows ever recorded, more than doubling the number from the previous year, with many opting for friendlier pastures like Portugal or Dubai.
The commercial unsurprisingly sparked a lot of comments from the crypto community. Former What Bitcoin Did podcast host, Peter McCormack, congratulated Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, saying:
“This is brilliant.”
As a Brit based in Bedford, UK, and now hosting The Peter McCormack show, which dives into the issues affecting the country, if anyone has a finger on the pulse of UK society, it’s McCormack.
“Everything Is Fine” exemplifies a new phase of advertising in crypto, where the best campaigns don’t simply explain blockchain; they reflect culture, poke fun at the absurd, and use storytelling to build trust, making Coinbase feel radically more human than competitors still pitching dreams.
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