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

Finance Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Coinbase App Gets Left Behind as Memecoin Craze Drives Traders On-Chain Phantom, a crypto wallet with a steeper learning curve, is ahead of exchange giant Coinbase in the Apple App Store rankings. By Danny Nelson| Edited by Nick Baker Updated Nov

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

Phantom, a crypto wallet with a steeper learning curve, is ahead of exchange giant Coinbase in the Apple App Store rankings.

By Danny Nelson|Edited by Nick Baker
Updated Nov 22, 2024, 5:51 p.m. UTCPublished Nov 22, 2024, 5:48 p.m. UTC
The newly popular Phantom wallet (CoinDesk)

The newly popular Phantom wallet (CoinDesk)
  • Phantom, a decentralized crypto wallet, has overtaken Coinbase (COIN) in the Apple App Store rankings, reflecting an on-chain shift as traders embrace high-risk memecoins.
  • TikTok videos are teaching people how to navigate wallets that are harder to use than centralized exchanges like Coinbase.
  • “Traditional centralized exchanges can’t keep up with all of the new on-chain paradigms fast enough,” Phantom CEO Brandon Millman said.

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.

Chill Guy, TikTok

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.”

PhantomCoinbasememecoins
Danny Nelson

Danny is CoinDesk’s managing editor for Data & Tokens. He formerly ran investigations for the Tufts Daily. At CoinDesk, his beats include (but are not limited to): federal policy, regulation, securities law, exchanges, the Solana ecosystem, smart money doing dumb things, dumb money doing smart things and tungsten cubes. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL tokens, as well as the LinksDAO NFT.

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Apple

South Africans can now buy Apple, Alphabet shares as digital tokens on Luno

From early August, Luno, a cryptocurrency and digital investment platform, will allow its users in South Africa to invest in tokenised stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making global equities like Apple and Alphabet accessible for as little as R20 ($1.13). The move positions Luno as a multi-asset investment platform and marks what it says is

From early August, Luno, a cryptocurrency and digital investment platform, will allow its users in South Africa to invest in tokenised stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making global equities like Apple and Alphabet accessible for as little as R20 ($1.13). The move positions Luno as a multi-asset investment platform and marks what it says is a first-of-its-kind offering in South Africa’s fast-evolving financial landscape.

Tokenised stocks are digital representations of real shares, backed 1:1 by actual securities. By enabling access via rands, Luno is removing longstanding barriers such as currency conversion costs, high fees, and trading-hour restrictions for retail investors in emerging markets.

“Until now, access to global financial markets has been locked behind red tape and legacy systems,” said Christo de Wit, Luno’s country manager for South Africa. “With tokenised stocks, we are offering South African investors easy access to global investments any time of the day or night.”

The platform will support over 60 U.S. companies and market indices, including Apple, Alphabet, NVIDIA, and the S&P 500. These tokenised products are made available through partnerships with infrastructure providers like Kraken’s xStocks and Backed Finance, which Luno says will ensure regulatory compliance, secure custody, and alignment with global financial standards.

How Luno tokenised stocks work

Customers can start investing with as little as R20 ($1.13), even in companies like Apple and Google. Instead of paying nearly R4,000 ($226) for a full Apple share, they can buy just a piece. These tokens are digital versions of real stocks, and customers trade them through blockchain. 

“This represents a fundamental shift in how we think about investing,” explained de Wit. “We are not just digitising old processes, we are reimagining what is possible when you combine improved technology with investor needs.”

Launched in 2013, Luno has grown to become one of Africa’s leading crypto exchanges, but now it’s adding tokenised stocks and ETFs. South Africa remains one of the continent’s most active crypto markets. Over 5 million South Africans are estimated to own crypto, with digital asset ownership expected to grow by nearly 8% annually through 2031.

Luno competes with platforms like VALR, Binance, AltcoinTrader, and wealthtech apps like EasyEquities and Satrix that focus mainly on traditional stocks and ETFs. 

Still, the expansion into tokenised equities could bring Luno under closer scrutiny. As digital tokens backed by real-world financial instruments, these offerings may fall within capital market regulations, including investor protection and transparency requirements. South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) is already in the process of licencing crypto asset providers and building a clearer framework for digital securities.

Mark your calendars! Moonshot by TechCabal is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com

Sakhile Dube Associate Reporter

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