The leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange is adding a Share button allowing traders to publicize their strategies as part of a broader move into social trading.
Coinbase is going down the social trading road, the U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange announced today.
In a November 12 blog post, Senior Product Manager Rishav Mukherji announced that Coinbase has added a new "Share" button that allows customers to share their trades with members of their private network or on social media.
The share button will only publicize their asset allocation, never the actual balances in the account, he said, adding:
"Many of our customers are looking for ways to better understand crypto both as an investment and as an app platform, but it can sometimes be challenging to find relevant information at the right time. Coinbase wants the crypto community to be an active part of this education effort."
The goal, make it "simpler and more fun to share information on your portfolio allocations or key crypto topics such as emerging new assets."
More ways of sharing trading strategies will be unveiled in the coming weeks, Mukherji said, adding that Coinbase wants to "empower the cryptoeconomy to share knowledge and information and learn from each other."
Social trading is nothing new. It is the core of crypto trading site eToro's offerings, which include CopyTrader, which lets investors automatically match the trades of members of its Popular Investors network, and pre-made portfolios of cryptocurrencies built around different investing strategies and methods. And Popular Investors get payouts based on the number of their followers.
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A Rocky Road
Coinbase's share slumped 13.5% on November 9, when the Nasdaq-listed company released Q3 net revenue 25% below expectations, and net income down 75% from Q2 — something CFO Alesia Hass attributed to lower market volatility that led to fewer trades and thus fewer transaction fees in an earnings call. CEO Brian Armstrong added:
"We never know exactly what's going to be happening this quarter in crypto, but we are seeing a really strong and accelerating pace of crypto adoption globally."
The company is focused on aggressively adding more assets, Haas said, calling its strategy "learning to support all legal assets will give our customers the broadest and safest choices to do so."
It is also finding more traction with non-trading offerings, she said, adding that nearly half of its monthly customers "are engaging with noninvesting products overall. We see this as a great indication that we're moving to the utility phase of crypto."
Another business line Armstrong highlighted was non-fungible tokens, pointing to its recently announced Coinbase NFT marketplace.
While the company's core business is fungible tokens — cryptocurrencies — Armstrong said:
"We're equally excited about NFTs. I think it could be as big or bigger."
