9 Clicks to Send

Want to send crypto on Coinbase? Easy.

Just scan the interface, find button #180 out of 300, tucked 20 pixels from the edge of the page. Click "Send Crypto." Simple.

Now select the currency. Choose the right network. Specify the amount. Enter your 2FA code. Use your passkey. Oh wait, new address? Check your email to verify it's actually you.

We're like 9 clicks deep and the funds still haven't moved.

This isn't a Coinbase problem specifically, it's more of an industry problem. But Coinbase is the front door to crypto for most people, so it matters more there than anywhere else.

Crypto products are built by people who understand crypto, for people who already understand crypto.

Every feature, every option, every network selector, they're all technically correct and functionally necessary. But they're all visible at the same time, with equal importance and weight, you can't figure out what you're supposed to do.

The result is an interface that feels like a cockpit when most people just need a steering wheel and a gas pedal. Less is so much more.

Coinbase has to be hiding at least half of what they're currently showing users. Not removing it. Hiding it. Defaults, progressive disclosure, contextual menus.

The answer for why the interface hasn't been cleaned up is simple: inertia and business pressures meant that pruning the interface was never on the roadmap.

The best financial products in the world got there by removing decisions, not adding them. Venmo doesn't ask you which payment rail to use. Your bank doesn't surface ACH routing options on the home screen. They made those choices so you don't have to.

The crypto products of the future won't require you to make decisions about which network funds settle on. All of the complexity will be abstracted away from you, as the user.

You will have a simple and clean interface that allows you to easily send funds faster, cheaper and better than anything you could imagine today.

Crypto is supposed to be the future of finance. Right now the UX feels like the past, like we're asking everyone to hand-configure their own TCP/IP settings to send an email.

The exchanges and products that figures out how to collapse those 9 clicks into 2 are going to eat everyone else's lunch. Right now, that might be Robinhood.