Bitcoin’s recent price stampede, which reached a new all-time high above $7,350, clearly demonstrates how the cryptocurrency ecosystem has been growing. For popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, things are seemingly great as well, as data suggests it just added over 100,000 new users in a single day.
According to data collected by a portfolio manager at the Atlanta Digital Currency Fund, Alistair Milne, the exchange’s growth has been notable throughout the year, with it reaching a record user growth on Tuesday. Data further suggests its number of users has more than doubled since the beginning of the year, as at press time Coinbase’s website points to 11.9 million users.
Coinbase added 100,000 users in the past 24hrs
Data: https://t.co/R9B63J2d6Q#bitcoin— Alistair Milne (
@alistairmilne) November 2, 2017
The exchange’s growth comes at a time in which the CME Group, the world’s largest derivates exchange, announces it plans on launching bitcoin futures during the fourth quarter of 2017. As reported by CCN, the absence of bitcoin derivatives has, so far, kept a lot of Wall Street investors on the sidelines, citing low liquidity and lack of access to traditional trading products. CME Group’s move could introduce a “wall of liquidity” to the markets, helping bitcoin’s price surge.
One of Coinbase’s biggest problems was its customer support service, as various users complained that it would take the exchange a long time to reply to their queries. The exchange, back in September, rolled out live phone support for its customers, in an attempt to solve the problem.
Moreover, Coinbase recently announced that its customers with a U.S. bank account will now be able to purchase bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin instantly when paying with it, as opposed to having to wait several days to receive their assets
However, things aren’t all good on Coinbase’s territory. Earlier this year, Coinbase’s Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) started being investigated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over an ethereum price flash crash that occurred on June 21. Coinbase, the owner and operator of GDAX, was asked to supply information on the flash crash that caused ethereum’s price to plunge from over $317 to 10 cents within milliseconds before recovering.
Regarding the upcoming SegWit2x hard fork, the exchange recently clarified its position on using accumulated network difficulty to determine which blockchain it will label as bitcoin following the fork.