Cryptocurrency wallet Blockchain is adding up 50,000 users a day amidst the ongoing crypto market downturn.
Posting on his Twitter account, Blockchain CEO and Cofounder Peter Smith made the claim in a tweet that also appeared to take a shot at Coinbase.
Defying the Downturn
Responding to a Bloomberg interview with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong where he stated that Coinbase was signing up 50,000 new users daily at the peak of last year’s bitcoin rally, Smith tweeted that Blockchain is currently managing to sign up that number of new users daily, and that the service helps them to actually use and engage practically with crypto, as against other unspecified use cases.
The tweet said:
Peter Smith@OneMorePeterCORRECTION: It’s actually *Blockchain* signing up over 50,000 per day in the midst of this crypto downturn. It’s delightful to see new entrants actually interested in *using* crypto. (Hi @crypto
)
Observers are likely to take the statement as a shot at Coinbase for apparently helping people to get into crypto for speculative purposes, instead of for practical purposes, unlike Blockchain. The implication, in other words, is that Smith was hinting that the trading and investment-heavy Coinbase model does not necessarily help the long-term adoption of crypto, and it may have in fact contributed to the crypto industry downturn.
Blockchain’s Big Ambitions
As the self-described “most trusted crypto company”, Blockchain certainly does not seem unwilling to take part in a little self-promotion from time to time. Smith’s statement, while difficult to verify is in keeping with the company’s aggressive growth mindset, which recently saw it hit the milestone of 25 million wallets.
The company offers its users the ability to send, receive, trade and store their cryptocurrency, which places it firmly within ‘Coinbase competitor’ territory. So far it appears to be more than holding its own, since successfully closing a $40 million Series B funding round led by Google in 2017.
Once listed among Virgin UK’s Top Ten most disruptive businesses, Blockchain has designs on conquering both the retail crypto market and the investment market. CCN reported in July that the company launched a product aimed at institutional investors called Blockchain Principal Strategies.
The product offers institutions and family offices customized access to markets and research in the light of growing interest from endowments, pension, hedge and mutual funds in the crypto industry.
On the retail side, Blockchain has also been at the cutting edge of some of the most significant moves in crypto transaction engineering such as the introduction of Segregated Witness (Segwit) and the pioneering transaction fee estimation program that allows users to allocate fees on a Satoshis per byte basis.
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