Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase shut down GDAX, its digital asset exchange for institutional investors and professional traders, on June 29th. The San Francisco based exchange also recently launched Coinbase Pro, a rebranded version of GDAX. Coinbase Pro’s new user interface has been promoted as an upgrade, however, many users are not happy with the company’s new product.
Moreover, Coinbase has received a lot of criticism due to bad customer service, and now the company has reportedly attempted to address these issues by setting up a new office in Portland, Oregon. According to an official blog post by Coinbase, it is planning to hire people for “customer support, finance, compliance, IT, and HR” positions for its Portland office. The exchange also recently launched a new office in Japan in order to “accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrency.”
While it appears that Coinbase is trying to expand its operations to cater to the rising interest in cryptocurrencies, the company has been heavily criticized for mismanaging user funds, and now more recently for seemingly serious issues with its new Coinbase Pro product.
David Farmer, General Manager of Coinbase Pro, noted that the exchange’s developers have created a new interface for the rebranded digital asset trading platform, which has reportedly been built by using the older GDAX trading engine as its base. Farmer added that GDAX’s API would remain operational until December 31st, 2018, and requested users to gradually migrate their API usage over to Coinbase Pro.
“Not a Step for the Better”
Although a new and improved product offering would seem like the right move for the exchange, the company has been receiving numerous complaints regarding Coinbase Pro. Many users have voiced their concerns on social media channels, with one Twitter user Nuno Dias saying that the new trading platform is “not a step for the better.” The user, who’s an Apple developer, even asked if Coinbase’s developers had quit their jobs.
This does not look good… iPad version is barely usable. iPhone version is meh.. I don’t understand, I know people are normally reluctant to change, but this was not a step for the better. Did your UI or UX designers quit?
— Nuno Dias (@nmdias_pt) June 29, 2018
Meanwhile, Twitter user tvitzer tvitzerovich stated that Coinbase Pro’s GUI is “bloated” and that their system “is slowing down” by using it. In fact, as soon as the user switched to Pro, their CPU utilization increased dramatically to over 25%.
