Coinbase Plans to Build 'Crypto App Store’: CEO

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has revealed the crypto exchange's plans to bring decentralized apps (dapps) to its users through a ‘crypto app store’. “There is now 10s of billions of dollars of economic activity running on dApps, and a new trend coming out every three months,” Armstrong said in a blog on the company’s website. “We’ll work to give our users easy access to all of this from the main Coinbase product.”  The evolving crypto horizon Armstrong’s app store comments come amidst what he sees as the birth of several new use cases in the industry. “We’re seeing crypto quickly mature from its initial use case of trading Bitcoin to the trading of thousands of new assets, and the adoption of new use cases like Decentralized Finance (DeFi), NFTs, smart contracts, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and more,” he said.  In essence, Armstrong views Coinbase as the Apple of the crypto industry. Just as Apple—and the Apple App Store—has made it easy for developers and tech professionals to innovate with the iPhone, Armstrong wants Coinbase to provide that same function for crypto.  “Apple didn’t attempt to build every app for the iPhone, it empowered developers and gave mobile users an easy way to access new innovative apps. We need to do the same in crypto,” Armstrong said.  While Armstrong conceded that the majority of these developments are relatively new, and that there are difficulties using this technology, he remained optimistic that the industry is going somewhere.  “In the same way we helped people access Bitcoin for the first time in a trusted, easy way—we need to do the same for the decentralized crypto economy,” he added.  Coinbase—the face of crypto? Armstrong clearly hopes that Coinbase will play a critical—even pivotal—role in the wider development of the crypto industry.  When Coinbase went public on the Nasdaq this April, many crypto onlookers shared similar sentiments. “It is a watershed moment for the crypto industry and speaks to more mainstream adoption on the horizon,” Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, told Decrypt at the time. He added that Coinbase is the “poster child of the crypto ecosystem and this listing will be closely watched by The Street.”  Similarly, Emiliano Grodzki, CEO of Bitfarms, said that “The Coinbase direct listing is just the latest demonstration of an explosion in legitimacy and trust in the crypto sector as a whole.” Despite the initial wave of optimism, however, Coinbase stock (COIN) has dropped to $254, a 22% decrease from its opening price of $328 on April 14.