Coinbase App Gets Left Behind as Memecoin Craze Drives Traders On-Chain

It’s
long
been
a
cryptocurrency
maxim
that
Coinbase’s
(COIN)
ranking
in
app
store
downloads
signals
how
much
retail
traders
are
participating
in
a
bull
market.
Well,
the
bull
run’s
here,
and
Coinbase
isn’t
climbing
charts
like
it
used
to.

Instead,
Phantom,
a
harder-to-use
crypto
wallet,
has
leapfrogged
the
better-known
centralized
exchange.
At
press
time,
Phantom
was
in
seventh
place
among
free
applications
—
between
Temu
and
Google
—
on
Apple’s
U.S.
App
Store,
well
ahead
of
Coinbase
at
27th.

The
flip
is
challenging
expectations
of
what
mainstream
traders
can
tolerate
during
their
first
days
in
crypto.
While
the
bitcoin
community
in
particular
has
always
emphasized
“being
your
own
bank,”
other
parts
of
the
cryptoverse,
like
Coinbase,
have
bet
on
a
more
accessible
experience.

Memecoin
mania
is
blowing
that
up.
Coinbase
and
other
established
exchanges
don’t
list
the
bottom-of-the-barrel,
hours-old,
exceptionally
risky
yet
sometimes
tremendously
lucrative
(if
you
don’t
lose
your
shirt,
as
most
do)
joke
tokens
that
new
traders
want
to
bet
on.
To
get
those,
they
gotta
go
on-chain
with
something
like
Phantom.

“Traditional
centralized
exchanges
can’t
keep
up
with
all
of
the
new
on-chain
paradigms
fast
enough,”
said
Phantom
CEO
Brandon
Millman
in
an
email.

In
the
past
week,
one
memecoin
in
particular,

Chill
Guy,
caught
plenty
of
attention
on
TikTok
and
even
more
bids
on-chain.
Bolstered
by
a
coordinated
social
media
marketing
campaign,
CHILLGUY
—
whose
mascot
is,
well,
a
chill-looking
dog
—
soared
in
days
from
a
market
cap
of
basically
nothing
to
as
high
as
$500
million.

Buying
CHILLGUY
and
other
fresh
memecoins
requires
a
bit
more
effort
than,
say,
buying
bitcoin

(BTC)
on
Coinbase.
Traders
must
navigate
decentralized
exchanges
and
learn
to
futz
with
finicky
order
settings
just
to
get
the
prices
they
want.
It’s
a
clunky
setup
with
a
high
learning
curve
compared
to
the
exchanges.

Whether
TikTok
is
primarily
responsible
for
driving
newcomers
on-chain
is
an
open
question.
The
video
app’s
exceptionally
niche
crypto
scene
doesn’t
have
any
truly
standout
videos
racking
up
millions
of
views,
as
those

de
rigueur
dance
routines
often
do.
More
common
are
the
oodles
of
low-viewership
crypto
bros
crowing
about
their
gazillionaire
designs.
A
handful
also
teach
their
followers
how
to
download
Phantom.

Coinbase
is
onboarding
memecoins,
to
be
sure.
In
the
past
week,
it
greenlit
FLOKI
and
PEPE,
as
well
as
WIF
for
German
traders.
Those
tokens
have
been
around
a
relatively
long
time
and
accrued
market
caps
in
the
billions
of
dollars,
making
them
more
stable
(relatively
speaking)
than,
say,
DIDDYOIL,
a
memecoin
only
accessible
to
traders
who
operate
on-chain.

“Our
mission
is
to
increase
economic
freedom
in
the
world,
and
we
know
we
can’t
do
it
alone,”
a
spokesperson
for
Coinbase
said.
“We
believe
a
rising
tide
raises
all
boats,
and
we
are
thrilled
to
see
more
people
engaging
on-chain
and
with
crypto
over
the
last
few
weeks.”

While
the
Coinbase
exchange
itself
is
only
tiptoeing
into
the
memecoin
space,
the
company
at
large
is
attempting
to
foster
—
and
capture
—
such
activity
with
its
layer-2
network,
Base.
Base’s
memecoin
scene
isn’t
at
the
level
of
Solana

(SOL),
but
it
still
sees
millions
of
dollars
worth
of
volume
each
day.

“We’re
focused
on
making
on-chain
faster
(transactions
anywhere
across
the
globe
in
seconds),
cheaper
(with
typical
Base
fees
of
less
than
1
cent)
and
easier
to
use,
so
on-chain
technology
is
accessible
to
anyone,
anywhere
in
the
world,”
the
spokesperson
said.

“We’re
looking
forward
to
bringing
a
billion
people
on-chain.”