Essay published on July 29, 2024
Purpose of Essay
This purpose of this essay is to share insights about the main challenges of crypto users in the UK, an overview of crypto regulation in the UK and how crypto exchanges can grow within the region.
Section 1: Understanding Crypto Users in the UK
There are only 3 out of the top 10 exchanges by trading volume active in the UK: Coinbase, OKX and Kraken. I completed an analysis of the 1-star reviews that OKX, Kraken & Crypto.com have received on their Trustpilot accounts from UK users in the last 1 year (between Jul 2023 - Jul 2024). This analysis involves a total of 202 users. This would give us an understanding of the unique pain points of crypto users in the UK.
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Key Insights
- The biggest complaints from crypto users in the UK are the closure of their accounts & when their accounts get locked due to compliance reasons. Both reasons account for about 38.6% of all the complaints. These complaints were most prominent among Kraken users.
- Slow support response was another issue raised frequently across the exchanges, accounting for 11.4% of the complaints.
- And finally, about 14.4% of complaints were related to issues around deposits and withdrawals, especially with Fiat Deposits. These complaints were most prominent among Crypto.com users.
Next Steps
- The ideal next step would be for us to analyse user complaints for your product, to understand what users love and what users dislike about it in the UK. This information combined with the insights above would help you understand the areas your product can strengthen to create a better experience for users in the market.
- Another next step from these insights would be to create messaging pillars for Coinbase in marketing assets (for user acquisition) as they would most resonate with crypto user pain points in the UK. This would effectively leverage counter positioning to get ahead in the market.
Section 2: Understanding the marketing regulation in the UK
In this section, I'll share more about the state of crypto regulation in the UK and its direction for the future.