PayPal Blocks Bitcoin Parody of PayPal Super Bowl Ad

Author: Velvet Gold Mine

A parody of PayPal's Super Bowl ad posted on YouTube was blocked by PayPal.

PayPal's video ads during the popular American sporting event, the Super Bowl, positioned the company as the "new currency" versus the "old currency."

According to the Wall Street Journal, this statement "irritated" Bitcoin supporters. Shiloh Silverman, head of the film and television production company Silver Park Studio, made a new version of the video. His parody cut together images of people using Bitcoin and replaced "PayPal" with "Bitcoin is the newer currency."

However, after Silverman uploaded the video to YouTube, PayPal protested and blocked the video.

"Our version of the new currency includes bitcoin," a PayPal spokesperson said in an email to The Wall Street Journal. "To avoid customer confusion, we asked them to remove the video."

PayPal also said that advertising parody is the sincerest form of flattery, and further stated that it proves that people are excited about the concepts presented in the company's advertisements.

Silverman, who posted the parody, said: "I'm not a Bitcoin fanatic, I just love the whole system it exists in."

A friendly relationship with Bitcoin

Although PayPal primarily develops its business using fiat currencies, the company is not opposed to Bitcoin.

The company also recently invited the CEO of bitcoin company Xapo to join its board of directors, and in September 2014 it established partnerships with the three major payment processors in the bitcoin space - BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin.

As a pioneer in the field of e-commerce, although PayPal has not directly incorporated Bitcoin into its own service system, it allows online merchants to use these three payment platforms and receive Bitcoin through the company's Braintree payment hub.

JPM compiled from
Coindesk, PayPal Blocks Bitcoin Parody of Super Bowl Commercial, by Daniel Palmer.