According to some recent statistics publicly displayed on the Coinbase website, the company is claiming to have 2.1 million users. That is quite a staggering number for a company that has been founded in July of 2012, even though we had seen a tremendous growth in users on a monthly basis. But are these numbers true or fake?
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Firstly, coinbase has two separate interests, the coinbase that started first and the coinbase exchange. I don't know which entity this is addressing or both. Considering that the article spoke about 'merchants' it clearly involves the first coinbase. I think this is referring to both of coinbase concerns.
Anyway, a user need not be a natural person, it very easily could be a business, so that one person could have many different business accounts. Additionally and probably more the case is larger companies are using coinbase to pay employees and vendors so yeah they may sign up for an account but for many of them simply another atm card attached to their demand account.
Lastly, not long ago coinbase has a referral program that paid both parties $5 in btc if someone made a referral and conducted a $100+ transaction. You know when that many parents and siblings were signed up unbeknownst to them.
Nevertheless Coinbase purposely refrained from early crazy growth. I think their true customer base is about 300K active customers.