European Central Bank studying risk-free digital money, says Lagarde RIYADH: Shares of Coinbase, the largest publicly listed US crypto exchange, slipped in premarket trading on Monday as traffic surged due to a Super Bowl ad that resulted in the app crashing briefly over the weekend. QR code is a two-dimensional version of the barcode that conveys a wide variety of information almost instantly with the scan of a mobile device. The site witnessed more than 20 million hits on its landing page in 1 minute and the engagement that was six times higher than previous benchmarks, Surojit Chatterjee, chief product officer at Coinbase, wrote on Twitter. “(Coinbase) just saw more traffic than we’ve ever encountered, but our teams pulled together and only had to throttle traffic for a few minutes. We are now back and ready for you,” Chatterjee said. Other crypto platforms FTX, Bitbuy, and eToro also ran Super Bowl ads — with varying results. Some analysts, however, urged people to exercise caution while investing. “Unfortunately, retail investors that will plunge headlong into crypto after seeing a Super Bowl commercial may have no means to perform due diligence and so run the risk of investing in a project with no sound basis for sustained growth,” Anto Paroian, COO at digital assets investment fund ARK36, said. “For the majority of investors, investing through an intermediary would be a more effective and safer way to obtain exposure to this asset class.” Ruud Feltkamp, CEO of cloud-based automated crypto trading bot Cryptohopper, added: “It’s great to see crypto showcased to the general public like this. It also shows so much more potential in crypto since many people are not using it yet. We are still among the early adopters.” Daily trading Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, traded higher on Tuesday rising by 4.83 percent to $44,292 at 1:55 p.m. Riyadh time. Ether, the second most traded cryptocurrency, was priced at $3,110, up by 8.33 percent, according to data from CoinDesk. Digital euro European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde talked about the digital euro at the plenary session of the European Parliament Monday on the 20th anniversary of the introduction of euro banknotes and coins. “Last year, we launched the digital euro project. We will investigate how a digital euro could offer a convenient, cost-free means of payment, allowing people to pay anywhere in the euro area with risk-free digital money — for example, when making payments online, which preclude the use of cash,” Lagarde said. “In any event, a digital euro would complement cash, not replace it. This is also why we launched the process for redesigning our banknotes,” she added. The European Central Bank launched a two-year investigation into a digital euro in October last year, according to Bitcoin.com. “Once the investigation phase has ended, we will decide whether or not to start developing a digital euro. We would then create and test possible solutions, working together with banks and companies which could provide the technology and the payment services,” the ECB clarified.