Coinbase app is ‘broken’ for UX, admits CEO Brian Armstrong

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has admitted that user experience on the exchange’s app is “broken” and has launched a renewed focus on rapidly fixing the biggest pain points during the company’s Onchain Summer festival.
Tom Mitchelhill
Posted by Tom Mitchelhill August 14, 2023 2 Mins Read
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has admitted that user experience on the exchange’s app is “broken” and has launched a renewed focus on rapidly fixing the biggest pain points during the company’s Onchain Summer festival.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says the rise of on-chain activities on its new layer-2 network Base has exposed how “broken” the Coinbase app is for user experience, and has pledged to improve it. 

In an X (Twitter) post on Aug. 13, Armstrong said a number of pain points have surfaced during “Onchain Summer” — a multi-week festival of product launches, brand activations, and non-fungible token reveals on Base that began on Aug. 9 and runs until Aug. 31.

Armstrong said the event has shown the weakness of the Coinbase app’s user experience for non-fungible tokens, decentralized apps, and layer 2s.

The CEO urged users of X to send feedback in response to the thread, in a bid to prioritize the most important queries, adding that the next two weeks will see rapid updates on the biggest pain points.

The most-liked response at the time of publication was a request from Friendtech developer Racer, who requested a fast settlement credit card on-ramp to Coinbase that didn’t require users to make a separate account.

Following this was a request to fix an ongoing bug that caused issues when connecting Coinbases’ mobile wallet to Google Chrome, with Armstrong noting that the bug had been more persistent than expected.

Related: Coinbase layer-2 network Base hits 136,000 daily active users

UX has long been a pain point for the crypto industry. In an interview with Cointelegraph, anonymous Web3 UI/UX designer, 0xDesigner blamed much of the issue on the owner-centric and irreversible nature of blockchain-based applications.

Despite app design being complicated by the often convoluted nature of blockchain tech, XGo content manager Kirthana Devaser says a continued focus on sleek UI and making blockchain “invisible” in everyday user interactions will help drive the next wave of mass adoption.

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