By
Steve Muchoki
April 25th, 2024
Coinbase will work to become a “super-app” over the next 5 to 7 years.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has not let the recent regulatory pressure from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), get to him. This follows after the SEC recently slammed the exchange with a damning lawsuit that has thrown crypto markets into uncertainty.
In the face of all the uncertainty, however, Armstrong has continued to see great potential for the digital ecosystem.
“We Want to Be That Super-App”, Says Brian Armstrong
While speaking at Coinbase’s State of Crypto Summit on Thursday, Armstrong noted that most people just see crypto as an asset class that they can trade and speculate on. However, crypto is more than what people make of it as it has many more use cases, he said.
To buttress his point, Armstrong cited the recent involvement of traditional financial services firms like BlackRock and Fidelity in the industry. This, he claims, has shifted the paradigm and brings some sort of encouragement as Coinbase will work to become a “super-app” over the next 5 to 7 years.
The term “super-app” describes Web2 applications such as AliPay and WeChat. These apps provide a wide range of services to users including messaging, payments, commerce, food ordering, and even booking doctor’s appointments. Armstrong said partly:
“In Coinbase’s case, we want to be that superapp, but it’ll be based on decentralized protocols.”
A decentralized application (dApp), as it were, is similar to digital apps that can be found on mobile phones. However, it has other features that are consistent with blockchain technology. By decentralizing, dApps create a digital space where peer-to-peer services can be carried out. That is without users having to worry about organizations having access to their private data.
It is interesting to see Coinbase remain so positive even with all that has happened this month. Recall that the SEC filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. According to the SEC, Coinbase operates as an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency all at once.
The lawsuit, along with similar action against Binance, has put the crypto industry in a state of caution as crypto firms ponder on what to do next.