Coinsquare (Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies)

Overview and Origin

Coinsquare is a Canadian based platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies. The platform comes with ssl and 2fa and has 95% of its currencies cold stored via its policy that enables instant traded between any of its multiple offering currencies. This transparency and risk mitigation, allows for a safe and regulated trading environment for the companies and traders digital assets. The company based from Toronto, Ontario was started in 2014 by Founding and Managing Director Virgile Rostand. A development firm that was at forefront for cryptocurrencies and technology by the name of Riot Blockchain had a contract with Coinsquare to further develop the platform but has since been terminated whilst undergoing investigation for legal issues in 2018. Coinsquare was an idea that came about to be able to connect traders from all walks of life in Canada, and to be able to open them up to the big wide world of Crypto trading. Since then a FinTech start called Mogo thats based in Vancouver has purchased 20 percent equity in Coinsquare and has agreed to make an initial investment of $56.4 million CAD. Other investment banks such as Canaccord Genuity, and Cormak Securities have since followed suite as being investors of Coinsquare and its equity. Coinsquare has funded $79.4 million dollars since its launch in 2014. This has further solidified Coinsquare as one of the main Crypto trading platforms in Canada. The company has over 100 employees.

Business Activities:

The biggest and most specific problem that Coinsquare is trying to solve is giving everyday people the ability to trade and purchase digital assets such as cryptocurrencies. The crypto currencies that Coinsquare offers such as BTC, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Dash, Stellar, BCH and many more allow the customers the ability to diversify their portfolios and prevent loss from financial inflation of the CAD, and improving equality with monetary management. Coinsquare currently has over 400 000 active users and that number has been steadily on the rise. The average user or customer ranges from professional investors to everyday and casual traders. Coinsquare offers solutions such as lower trading fees and rates compared to many competitor cryptocurrency trading platforms. Take a Coinbase where they add four percent on base fees, with Coinsquare commission fees fall to a mere 0.2 to 0.4 percent depending on if the advance trading option is used or not. This in turn makes it more appealing for traders in general as they have less fees when making purchases or transactions. Coinsquare is primarily a web based trading platform, that utilises the same kind of technology that the New York Stock Exchange uses and in conjunction with the transparency of the blockchain technology behind the transactions. Coinsquare also uses the Canadian market and accepts CAD from traditional banks as a form of deposit. These methods are known as Bank draft, Flexepin, Interac e-Transfer, Interac Online, Money order, and traditional Wire transfer.

Landscape

The domain that Coinsquare is in Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain. Over the last 10 years there has been lots of momentum and innovations surrounding this space. To date we have over 504 Cryptocurrency exchanges, and out of those 259 are currently tracked on CoinMarketCap. The Blockchain technology has seen large scale adoption with not only large banking institutions such as JP Morgan in order to better implement large transfer of digital assets but also for the transparency also. With the likes of Bitcoin being labeled as “Digital Gold” blockchain technology in this instance has implemented the idea of storage of value. The benefits of Blockchain also includes enhancement of cyber security, making decentralization of Domain Name Systems less likely to be stolen corrupted or deleted. Blockchain can also streamline financial operations through the use of smart contracts. Some other companies in this domain include BRD, BitMEX, IBM, Circle, Steem, Coinbase, and Netki.

Results

The business impact from Coinsquare since its launch in 2014 has been great. Coinsquare has grown to be the number one platform in Canada for trading digital assets. Coinsquare had reached record highs from their performance in Q1 of 2021 due to the high popularity of digital assets they offer. The platform has had a growth of 700 percent over the previous year 2020, with $630 million revenue raised. Coinsquare is ranked 9th out of its top 10 competitors globally.

Recommendations

My recommendation to Coinsquare would be to offer incentives to its customers. Incentives that would drive loyalty and bring in new business. This could take form in staking rewards, such as a percentage per annum, on their wallets for locking or freezing their funds for periods at a time such as three to six months. These rewards would be calculated at for example 12 percent per annum if they were to stake their holdings and lock them up for six months. Coinsquare could also implement exciting events where they could hold competitions in order to create engagement and excitement with their customers in exchange for winning digital assets. This would cause wider reach both organically and through advertisement such as digital and social media, inturn draw more customers who would be compelled to use their platform. This would drive business and also create more brand awareness for potential customers who are active and who are looking at entering the digital trading world.