It’s time to draw this year to a close. 2020 surprised us all in many ways. From a pandemic that kept us inside and brought international travel to a grinding halt, to a global movement for racial justice, the year 2020 has certainly experienced its fair share of world-shifting events.

It’s human nature to focus on the bad stuff. So, let’s shift focus and see what positive things we can take from the year that was 2020.

Pollution dropped by a whole lot due to people staying home more or planning their trips. Many families got to spend more time together, school continued from home. A panda was born and Netflix got people playing chess again.

And last, but certainly not least, crypto is back in business. 

Bitcoin, now with a market cap of over $500B, is the largest financial institution in the world. Think about that for a second: we’re not ones to talk up disaster capitalism, but bitcoin did have a pretty great 2020.

So, after putting smiles on our customer’s faces, overhauling design, and rolling out new products, how has that translated, results-wise?

Across all of our main metrics, we’ve enjoyed substantial growth.

We’ve launched new strategies to drive traffic and acquire customers as well as pinpointed the best channels for us to focus on. This combination of strategy and doubling down on what’s working has seen CoinMetro’s growth rate increased 620% year on year. 

Yes, you read that correctly. And it is no exaggeration!

Anyone who thought a global pandemic would keep the CoinMetro team down, thought wrong. As a decentralized team by design, the lockdowns did not stop us. In fact, the way our team is organized meant that we were already working in a Covid-safe way, long before any of us had any idea what the hell that even meant.

Instead of layoffs, the CoinMetro team grew. We brought on new talented and experienced specialists who are now part of the CoinMetro family. That’s not to say the lockdowns did not affect us in any way, we are all human, but we did manage to close our best year ever as a company.

We’ve worked hard to bring together the best team, in all areas. We listen to our customers, putting things right when they go wrong, and answering questions, 24/7. CoinMetro has also taken an active listening approach when it comes to product feedback from the community, particularly from our champions on Telegram.

Building a community of traders, all helping each other was the goal when Kevin, our CEO, started CoinMetro and it’s one of the most close knit communities in crypto.

Our customers are happy and that is what makes it all worthwhile.

And we’ve gained momentum – what usually happens when you see things going well and results start flying in? You want to do more. This coupled with the comeback of crypto and we’re ready to take on 2021 at full speed.

So without further ado, let’s see what we had cooking up in our product in 2020.

We believe our product is night and day today compared to the beginning of the year. We’ve not just given our platform and brand a facelift, It’s had a complete overhaul, while still holding on to that all-important CoinMetro soul.

Our products are really close to our heart and we plan and work on them in house. Our goal is to build intuitive products that suit our customers needs.

We recognize that we provide a crucial tool for many and it needs to be as easy to use as possible, with all of the features expected. The service needs to be impeccable. Not only do we thrive to be the best exchange, we’re here to build the future of finance.

Products are always evolving, design trends change, new ways of doing things emerge. It’s the same with us. We started with a funky and different concept for an exchange. The soul is still there but the face and feel of it has grown up as we, as a business, grow up.

Product development is a process, rather than a simple list of tasks, but it’s the one we love. A product is never really ready, there is always something to tweak, there’s always a new and better solution we can come up with and so, we take steps towards building the future of finance every single day.

The best product is one where you don’t need a manual. One that works without even having to think about it. We have achieved a minimal amount of downtime and can take pride in a product that isn’t buggy. Of course, there can be snags from time to time, we’re still only human. But we are working around the clock to keep everything up and running and running well.

Looking at how the product and brand has grown over the course of 2020, CoinMetro is without a doubt the coolest fintech brand out there!

We’re rapidly improving the user experience, looks and functionality of CoinMetro. We’ve added a trading sentiment indicator used by hedge funds. We’ve upped the leverage on our margin trading platform to 5x. Our affiliate program offers the highest rewards in crypto.

Now onto the practical side, because looks aren’t everything.

This year there’s more fiat options on our platform so that you can trade in your native currency. Before this there were options, but they came at a cost. You’d either use a fiat supported provider that took hefty fees for every move and then would probably move your crypto to another exchange for day trading.

We’ve been there too. Losing on exchange rates with fiat in every stop, then losing on network fees moving your crypto then finally you get to the trading fees. And the same story goes backwards as well if you wanted to cash out. We didn’t like this, so we went on to get licenses and banking providers to be able to support our customers in their native currencies.

Today we support:

USD, EUR, GBP and AUD deposits & withdrawals.

You can deposit funds from your bank or credit card, most options are instant. No need to wait and lose the price you’re after. 

We have USD & EUR trading pairs with the major cryptos. No need for Tether when you’re waiting for the next dip 🙂

We are already working on our new licenses to keep bringing you more fiat options, more features and eventually become the one platform for all your personal finance needs.

We released our security token marketplace at the end of the summer 2020 and it is a one of a kind. Together, in partnership with Ignium, we provide the issuance, custody and settlement system, as well as a securities marketplace and secondary trading platform.

This enables our customers to purchase digital securities such as bonds and equities. The marketplace is the first end-to-end digital securities marketplace in Europe. Depending on the issuer, this gives access to global investors.

We solve a problem for both companies and investors – it is difficult to offer your securities to retail investors, and retail investors usually miss out on the best deals because of this, and so the financial inequality continues, rich get richer, poor get poorer. Access to great investment opportunities should be available to all, not just the rich folk.

As we’re ending the year, €400k has been invested on our securities platform just after soft launching it!

Our own CoinMetro Bond offer is still live. The Bond pays you 8-12% interest per year on a daily basis and at the end of the 2 year term you have the option of redeeming your investment in XCM or converting to equity-like tokens and have the rights of a shareholder.

You still have a limited amount of time to invest, don’t miss out!

At the core of CoinMetro is our platform token XCM. All of our fees are transacted in XCM, parts of it are vaulted and locking XCM pays you rebates. 

This year we’ve increased the liquidity of our token and the trading volumes of XCM have also skyrocketed. In addition to this over 5M XCM has been locked, removing it from the supply.
We have support from our resident crypto whales and they have big plans for XCM in 2021.

We are planning to introduce XCM staking in the upcoming year as well. 2021 will be the year of XCM so make sure to fill your bags early.

We’re scaling fast, we’re prepared and ready to take 2021 head on. XCM will be the token of the year and CoinMetro the exchange of the year. Bring it on!

Under the hood we have compliance, operations, and finance making sure everything is up to par. These are the typically “unsexy” parts of FinTech, but overlook them at your peril. We put a lot of effort, from day one, into making sure CoinMetro is compliant, operationally sound, and financially responsible. We are not here to cut corners, we are here to build the future of finance.

So here it is, this year we built a lot, we grew a lot and we will keep doing so in 2021. This is our promise to you. May 2021 be the best year for all of us and bring you everything you’ve wished for in every area.

We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and see you next year!

The CoinMetro Team

P.S. This is not all that’s new. Kevin got an upgrade for his AMA’s to bring you all the updates on what we do and answer all your questions as always. Every single week. But now, he looks a lot better through the new lens, and the backgrounds are fantastic.

See you on the next AMA, 1pm UTC on Friday.