Coinbase sees 44% drop in trading volume, blames RBI ‘unofficial pressure’ for UPI feature outage
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported a 44% drop in its overall trading volume in the first quarter of 2022. During an earnings call, Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong said the trading volume of Coinbase company is $309 billion (approximately 23,86,484 crore) from January to March of this year. This is significantly less than the $547 billion in trading volume (approximately Rs 42,23,250) that Coinbase reported in Q4 2021. Missing the estimated revenue target of $1.5 billion (approximately 11,582). Rs), Exchange cryptocurrency only achieved $1.17 billion (about Rs 9,037) in revenue in the first three months of 2022.
Armstrong, who was recently in India, also shed some light on why the platform has suspended a feature, just days after launching it to Indians. In April, Coinbase announced that Indians will be able to purchase crypto assets on their platform using India’s own digital payment method – UPI.
The launch of this feature was called ‘unaccredited’ by the government, resulting in Suspensions from Coinbase application.
“Essentially, they (RBI) are applying soft pressure behind the scenes to try to disable some of these payments, possibly through UPI. So a few days after launch we ended up shutting down UPI because of some informal pressure from the RBI, a kind of Treasury equivalent there,” the media reported. quote Armstrong said.
Doesn’t look good!!
“India is a unique market in the sense that the Supreme Court has ruled that it cannot ban cryptocurrencies, but there are elements in the government there, including at the Reserve Bank of India, who don’t seem to be positive about it. “, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong https://t.co/mStSJh97sR– Chandra R. Srikanth (@chandrarsrikant) May 11, 2022
The NASDAQ listed company, founded in 2011, is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.
According to its latest data, 9.2 million monthly transactional users (MTUs) were active on its platform, compared with 11.4 million in Q4 2021.
Overall, Coinbase ended up missing its revenue, trading volume, and MTU estimates.
The company, which plans to expand internationally, expects a further drop in MTU and trading volume in the second quarter of this year – from April to June, Coindesk said in a statement. report.
“While we are navigating uncertain and volatile markets, we have a decade of experience to draw from and will continue to invest wisely to drive long-term growth,” the company said. term,” the company said.
Coinbase is looking to increase its potential adjusted EBITDA loss in 2022 to approximately $500 million (about 3,861 crore) on a full-year basis. EBITDA stands for ‘earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization’.
