Coinbase is an online platform for buying, selling, transferring and storing digital currency, which has become popular due to its ease of use and ever growing functionality. Next, we’ll look at the capabilities of this platform and tell how to create a website like Coinbase yourself.
Step 1: Coinbase Business Model
At the time of launch in 2012, the
Coinbase website was an online wallet where you could store some of the
most popular cryptocurrencies. However, by the end of this year, the service had the opportunity to safely buy digital currencies without the need to switch to third-party services. And this was only the beginning, in the next years the possibilities of the site were constantly expanding:
- Deposit insurance. The stored in Coinbase online wallets cryptocurrency is insured. If users lose money due to a violation of the physical security of a web service, cyberattacks, or employee theft, the company will compensate for the damage. The amount of coverage depends on the country, for example, for residents of the United States it is 250 thousand dollars. Insurance does not cover cases of loss of money due to the user's fault.
- Crypto-exchanges. In 2015, the centralized GDAX exchange (formerly Coinbase Exchange) and the decentralized Paradex exchange in 2018 were launched. The purchase and sale of coins is integrated as a normal trading interface.
- Payment gateway. e-Commerce web services can connect to Coinbase in order to realize the possibility of purchasing goods and services on their site using bitcoins, ether, bitcoin cache and other popular coins.
- Venture fund. Comprehensive support and investment in early stage of blockchain startups.
As you can see, Coinbase is a comprehensive platform that provides many
cryptocurrency services. Creating such a site will require a lot of time and money, as well as talented developers who can implement everything at the same high level, since if the quality of the created product is lower, then users will not make sense to use your site.
Step 2: Elements and functions of the site
Trading engine. At Coinbase, it is implemented in a classic way and allows you to buy cryptocurrency at a market rate through integration with GDAX. The list of available coins, payment methods and fees depend on the region (city, country) and
specific cryptocurrency. Some currencies are only available for sale with the Pro & Prime tools. In addition, the purchase of crypto is completely blocked for residents of certain countries, which is associated with the company's desire to act in the legal field.
Basic features of the trading engine:
- Transaction execution and balance calculation.
- Makes a call to access order books.
- Matching buy and sell transactions on the exchange.
User interface. All elements of the site that interact with the user directly. When developing them, you need to focus on a pleasant appearance and an intuitive understanding by the user of the functions of each element. Without this, while developing sites like Coinbase, you can easily get bogged down by creating an interface that only experts can figure out.
Basic user interface functionality:
- Registration / Login using email, phone or social networks.
- Profile setup, including the ability to create a new crypto address.
- Cryptocurrency rate charts, including showing the highest correlations.
- Transfers and the possibility of creating orders for the purchase of crypto.
- View balance and transaction history.
- Training and background information.
User management. An online platform that provides the services of a cryptocurrency wallet and / or exchanger, needs tools that are responsible for automatically tracking, managing and deleting profiles at the request of users. In practice, these tools are responsible for the following actions:
- Receiving and processing requests for registration and login. Including checking and confirming the email and phone number, tracking the IP address and creating a cryptocurrency account (wallet).
- Verification of the user's identity according to the KYC procedure, which is important for determining the user's jurisdiction and increasing the limits on input / output. Some things can be confirmed automatically (country, phone, last name and first name using Internet banking), while the rest will require the creation of an application for verification by the administrator (availability of a document, matching of a person on a document and user selfie).
- Blocking users or freezing accounts in case of incorrect / atypical behavior, for example, if the user usually operated with small amounts, and then suddenly created a request to transfer all funds to an unfamiliar counterparty. These actions are now tracked using deep neural networks.
Admin panel. A set of functions and tools with which administrators monitor the status of a site, manage users and monitor trade. Based on access levels, they should be given the opportunity to view the user ID, email address, phone number, first name with last name, etc., as well as information about transactions: identifier, time stamps, amounts, description, etc.