Significant news about US-based crypto exchange Coinbase is likely on the way.
It was CEO Brian Armstrong himself who announced this in a post on X yesterday.
Summary
Crypto news: Coinbase’s UX problem
In particular, Armstrong spoke of a problem with the UX (User eXperience).
In fact, according to Armstrong, the UX of the main Coinbase app with regard to NFTs, dApps and L2s is “broken”.
He therefore urges people to take note of this and get to work on improving it.
Armstrong adds that the UX of the Coinbase wallet app also still needs a lot of work.
He also invites users to provide their feedback to understand what needs to be improved, and how.
It is therefore likely that over the coming months, or years, the user interface of Coinbase’s apps will be revamped, especially that of the wallet and that of the Web3 and Layer 2 services.
Indeed, despite the high fees for on-chain transactions, there has not yet been a real boom in transactions via Layer 2s, even though the opposite would be expected.
The problem is often that crypto tools are difficult for most people to use, and a simplified user interface would be of great benefit in this respect.
The Layer 2 solution from Coinbase
One such Layer 2 is Base, launched by Coinbase itself and based on Ethereum.
Base was launched only a few days ago, and right from the start it seems to be achieving interesting results.
According to official data, it already registers more than 600,000 transactions per day on its blockchain, although these might be generated by the numerous memecoins that are springing up on this new blockchain or by NFTs such as those of Coca Cola.
Moreover, so far only just over 800,000 addresses have been registered cumulatively on Base’s blockchain, which suggests that it is somewhat the same ones that are generating the new transactions.
It is possible that part of the new features coming to Coinbase’s apps in the coming months will involve Base itself, i.e. its use as a Layer 2 of Ethereum to transact ETH or stablecoins such as USDT at a lower cost.
No other new features have yet been announced, although Armstrong hinted that the internal development team is already working on them.
UX key to mainstream adoption
The user experience of crypto tools is by far one of the most important and necessary elements in bringing them to the masses.
That is, mass adoption of cryptocurrencies will never happen if the UIs (User Interfaces) of crypto tools aren’t easier and more intuitive to use.
For insiders, or for those with experience in the field, this problem may seem minor, but in reality it is not at all.
What’s more, from the very outset Coinbase was born as a project aimed at the masses, with the aim of making it easy for everyone to enter and operate in this new sector.
Truth be told, over the course of time, the company has also increasingly dedicated itself to institutional services not aimed at the masses, but at the same time maintaining its focus on retail users.
This is even more evident during bull runs, when the hype brings many thousands of new users without any experience to enter the crypto world.
In order to enable them to participate without major problems, and perhaps even to stay in, the tools they use need to be easy and intuitive, and there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard.
Crypto news: the evolution of Coinbase
Coinbase was founded in 2012, i.e. three years before Ethereum, when the only really big cryptocurrency in circulation was still Bitcoin.
Initially it was an exchange to buy and sell BTC, then later it also integrated other cryptocurrencies.
At the time, it was aimed almost exclusively at a retail audience, as institutional investors were still far from getting involved.
It was mainly aimed at the US market, but was later opened up to foreign users from around the world.
During the second big crypto bull run, the one in 2017, it was not only the world’s leading crypto exchange, since Mt.Gox had gone bankrupt in 2014, but it actually helped a lot of people enter the crypto markets for the first time.
Instead, during the last big bull run, it focused more on the development of institutional services, as the market was still quite thin in that respect.
After the failure of FTX in November last year, new scenarios opened up for crypto exchanges aimed at the US market, and it might be that Coinbase’s goal is to attract retail crowds in the event of a new bull run.
It remains to be seen whether the announced innovations will only be superficial, or whether they will really make it a lot easier for inexperienced and newbies to use crypto tools.
