With the number of crypto exchanges soaring up over the past year, Coinbase has left them all behind. The exchange is famous in the industry for its excessive fees, and it appears that this step has been fruitful for the exchange as it earned over a billion dollars of revenue last year. Given such success and profits, investors are demanding a share in the booming revenue base.
The six-year-old exchange has earned over a billion dollars in 2017 as reported by Recode, a Silicon Valley tech news website. However, this should come as no surprise if you have been following the crypto space on social media. Thousands of issues get raised on social platforms regarding the unreasonably high fees and transaction commissions charged by Coinbase. These charges are unusually high during phases of high demand. Despite the slow speed, high costs and almost non-existent customer support, Coinbase has been able to earn a fortune.
The recent surge in crypto prices and an ever-evolving interest in these markets are responsible for offering an unexpected push to the exchange’s profits. It was expected that the company’s revenue would settle around $600 million as per predictions in September 2017. In comparison, Bithumb, the famous South Korean exchange recorded income of just $280 million in the same year, according to the local press.
In light of the recent success, venture capitalists, brokers and investors have offered Coinbase shareholders to sell their shares at profitable prices. After this, the company had to issue a warning to its stakeholders-
“As a private company, Coinbase does not allow trading of stock on secondary markets for a variety of reasons, including the fact that there is not full and equal information available to the market. We will take appropriate action if we find people have sold Coinbase shares in violation of our agreements not to do so.”
Unlike several other exchanges, Coinbase does not depend on fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price to earn profits. Instead, the company charges every transaction on its platform, and thus, trade volume is a significant contributor to its revenues. Both the buyer and the seller are charged a commision between 0.25% and 1% on the transaction’s value. Additionally, the fees on fiat deposits and withdrawals are as high as 4%. It is charging like a broker under the name of an exchange.
The exchange is providing fiat to crypto trading facilities in 32 countries globally with over 13 million registered users. Many of these users have little or no choice when it comes to using Coinbase as the exchange, given the restrictions in their respective regions. At one time, it’s reported that Coinbase was the most popular app on Apple’s store, and featured more brokerage accounts that the trading giant Charles Schwab. With no signs of a slowdown in the crypto-space, it seems that Coinbase is all set to keep reaping profits.
