2023 has not been the best year for cryptocurrencies...
Coinbase, which became a household name during the pandemic, is a good proxy for how the masses fell in and out of love with this new type of money most still don't understand.
And in 2023, there's been a lot of falling out of love with the platform.
Coinbase made its way into 2.2M iPhone and Android devices in January of 2022, according to our App Intelligence. That wasn't the peak of downloads for the crypto exchange, but I didn't want to go back too far.
That was also when Bitcoin, the most popular crypto currency mere mortals know about, was near its peak.
Bitcoin's value, like Coinbase's downloads, started declining very early in 2022.
By mid July Bitcoin was worth less than half and Coinbase's downloads were at about a quarter, 607K for the month of July.
The trend continued and by May of 2023 Coinbase saw just 379K downloads from the App Store and Google Play, according to our App Intelligence. That's an 82% cut when compared to January.
Bitcoin's value continues to fluctuate but is still far from where it was in 2022. Coinbase's bet on mere mortals trading something they don't understand was a good one when the going was good. And it might be good again, but for now it really doesn't look like it.
I'm no crypto expert, but I think the masses aren't ready for crypto yet.
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