Coinbase plans to roll out a new service — its own crypto app store

Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US, recently published a blog post in which it announced that it is working on creating a new app store, with this one being specifically made for cryptocurrency apps. The company plans to allow third-party developers to publish their applications in the app store, thus allowing easier access to decentralized crypto economy, as the exchange calls it.

The world’s first crypto app store to be developed by Coinbase

The crypto industry has seen thousands of decentralized applications (dApps) launched over the last six years, since the creation of Ethereum which made it all possible. However, while there are dApps for anything these days, the problem is accessing them. Not because it is particularly difficult, but because it is not instinctive and intuitive.

So, Coinbase now plans to make it so, creating essentially a crypto version of popular app stores such as Google Play Store or Apple App Store. In doing so, it will create a single place where users can turn to to get new dApps, as well as access a variety of tools within DeFi, DAOs, smart contracts, NFTs, and more.

Coinbase’s post was written by the exchange’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, himself. Armstrong chose to title it ‘Embracing decentralization at Coinbase.’ In it, the exchange’s CEO pointed out that this is a universal approach to creating an app store in the tech industry, noting that not even Apple tried to create every app for its iPhone and other products.

Instead, the company empowered third-party developers, and at the same time, it granted mobile users an easy way to access these applications. Now, Armstrong wants to do the same in the crypto industry, noting that there are significant growth opportunities that come with this approach.

What is next for Coinbase?

Unfortunately, he did not mention when the app might be ready for release, or even whether or not it might arrive in 2021, at all. Instead, he chose to focus on the importance of adding even more assets to Coinbase, as well as on the implementation of the ability to add new coins faster. The exchange still holds doing things in a regulatory-compliant way its top priority. But, with that said, he did say that the exchange wants to make the process quicker, in order to better serve clients on both ends.

In doing so, the firm will reduce the burden on asset issuers, create a new, so-called ‘experimental zone’ for new assets, and move towards approving most assets for its services. Furthermore, he noted that Coinbase has a big goal of expanding further. So far, it already services over 100 countries, but Armstrong wants to push that further. Lastly, Coinbase also wants to better embrace self-custody and third-party interfaces, which the app store might actually help with.