Is Crypto Dead? Coinbase Loses Significant Downloads in 2022

Coinbase enjoyed an amazing couple of years. Uncertainty during lockdowns drove more regular folks towards crypto and Coinbase was the app of choice to buy and sell.

Back in January, it looked like Coinbase was going to become one of the dominant apps across the App Store and Google Play. I even suggested that'll happen in 2022. But I was wrong...

Crypto has been in the news a bunch over the last few weeks after one currency totally collapsed. Bitcoin's value shrinking drastically since February didn't help either.

And the same platform that brought common folks into crypto is now seeing them leave...

Downloads of Coinbase dropped to less than a half so far in 2022. And I'm not even comparing it to the highs of 2021.

In January, Coinbase welcomed a little over 2 million new downloads, according to our estimates. That's been dropping consistently, though. In April, downloads didn't even get to 900,000, a decrease of more than 57%. They rebounded a tiny bit in May at a touch more than 900,000 but aren't looking anything like January and are far from the 3.9 million downloads Coinbase saw in May of 2021.

Is this the end for crypto? Unlikely. I think many companies enjoyed the naivety of the millions who were lured into investing without understanding why and how it really works. And thanks to apps like Coinbase, were able to set their money on fire pretty easily.

That trend is now on ice, and that's a good thing if you ask me.

Regulations, platform changes, and a purge of opportunistic companies will allow crypto to come back into the mainstream. So it isn't a question of if but rather when.

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