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The “Enshittification” of Crypto Exchanges
Another way to maintain relevance in a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive space.
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With the rapid rise of decentralised exchanges (DEXes), significantly cheaper NFT minting fees and token swaps courtesy of Solana and Ethereum L2s, and a growing list of user-friendly non-custodial wallets on the market, regular crypto exchanges have realised they’ll need to adapt if they want to succeed in future.
Gone are the days of primarily relying on them as the main option to buy and sell crypto, especially tokens.
Today, I will be focusing on two of the largest (centralised) exchanges in the world, Coinbase and Kraken, with 24-hour trading volumes of $2.71 billion and $1.34 billion, respectively.
While these are still far behind Binance, which consistently hits $20 billion in 24H volume worldwide (it hit a whopping $69 billion in just one day in February), these remain two of the most regulated CEXes in the USA.
Coinbase and Kraken have started doing something that has (or will) provoke the ire of many people, or will at least get eyes rolling.
Subscriptions.
Love them or loathe them, they’re not going anywhere.
Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium…the list goes on.
