YouHodler Quarterly Review: Q1 2021
Well, today is April 1st, 2021, a day many around the world celebrate as “April Fool’s Day.” While we at YouHodler all love a good joke, the first quarter of 2021 was nothing to laugh about. For the last three months, we saw the crypto market explode in vicious waves of volatility that brought millions of “newbies” into the market in addition to some large traditional institutions. Before we jump full speed into Q2, let’s take a few minutes to look at some of Q1’s highlights, challenges, and opportunities for the future.
Market news recap: the retail investor army wakes up
The beginning of Q1 started off hot with Bitcoin (BTC) and a variety of other cryptocurrencies experiencing a “flash crash” on January 4th that saw BTC lose more than $5,000 in the span of a couple of hours. Its largest drop in history. Suddenly, the news articles started calling for the demise of Bitcoin (a common theme in Q1). However, Bitcoin had other plans.
Just two days later, BTC smashed effortlessly through the $35,000 barrier and beyond thanks in large part to retail investors looking for a safe hedge against inflation due to the weakening US Dollar. Furthermore, retail investors were given a big boost in confidence by the likes of PayPal, Tesla, Mastercard and other large institutions who all invested significant money into the cryptocurrency market.
Since then, the crypto market has more or less been a dramatic opera of volatile swings in both directions. Large “whales” and financial institutions continue to “buy the dip” at every chance they get, further widening the gap between “paper-handed HODLers” with small amounts of Bitcoin and the massive whales.
YouHodler hits all Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Q1
As one would expect, the news highlighted in the previous paragraphs brought tons of attention to the market, and YouHodler was primed for the wave of traffic to the platform.
In Q1, YouHodler recorded a 246% increase in clicks, a 90% increase in impressions, and a 75% increase in click-through-rate (CTR) on our main desktop landing page.
As for app downloads, we increased Android and iOS usage by about 100% each since January 1. Regarding team KPIs a few notable increases were:
- The number of monthly active users increased 50%
- The fastest-growing service of Q1 was the "Crypto Conversion" feature (30% increase in usage from last quarter).
- The second fastest-growing feature was Multi HODL (nearly 25% of MH users tried the feature at least once in Q1).
- The number of new accounts increased by 45% since last quarter.
More company updates and big wins
Aside from the statistical achievements YouHodler recorded this quarter, there were also several-development and business-related achievements that helped make YouHodler more efficient and reputable. Some highlights included:
YouHodler SA (Switzerland)
In January, YouHodler announced the launch of its Switzerland-based entity, YouHodler SA. This announcement helped solidify our presence in the country and create the foundation for further growth there. At the moment, Swiss citizens can take crypto-backed loans and use our universal conversion engine via YouHodler SA. However, full operational capabilities are in progress and we will keep you updated on all steps forward.
Tesla giveaway promo
Coinciding with the hype Elon Musk brought to the crypto market this quarter, YouHodler celebrated with a big announcement of its own. The launch of our Tesla promo gives all clients who use $1,000 on the platform a chance to win a brand new Tesla Model Y. The final results will be revealed on May 22nd, "Bitcoin Pizza Day."
Check out our Tesla giveaway landing page to learn more.
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) integration
In early March, YouHodler announced a collaboration with Binance that brought Binance Smart Chain integration to the platform. BSC is faster and cheaper than blockchains like ERC20 and Bitcoin and we are happy to bring a more efficient transaction experience for our clients. BSC (BEP20) is not available for all cryptos so if you are depositing or withdrawing via BEP20, make sure it is with a coin that supports it.
Challenges
Client relations
Success does not come without the presence of challenge. No matter how fast we grow or how great our platform is, there will always be challenges along the way. If handled correctly, hurdling a challenge opens a wealth of new opportunities. If not, then a failure occurs. YouHodler met many challenges in Q1 but ultimately, helped make us a stronger team as a result.
The first and most obvious challenge was the sudden influx of new users to the platform. While this is more or less a good problem to have, it’s still difficult to onboard many of these users all at once. Know your customer (KYC) lines were backed up and customer support was flooded with hundreds of questions per day, many of them from “crypto newbies” as we like to call them. While there is no such thing as a stupid question for our support team, the sheer volume of inquiries was shocking at first. But they rose to the challenge.
We’ve now developed a new customer support workflow that helps us nurture newcomers to the community without sacrificing care and attention to our older and most loyal clients.
Tech issues
As many of you found out first hand, we had a minor tech issue with our savings account indicator this month. No client funds were affected and we were able to fix the error quite fast. Thank you to all who practiced good patience during that week. Everything is now 100% back to normal.
Tech issues are a normal part of any tech-based company. One shouldn’t judge a company on the tech issue itself, but instead how a company handles itself in the wake of said tech issue.
“At YouHodler, we pride ourselves on fast and smooth conflict resolution. We accept problems will come and are prepared to face them one by one. We can’t promise another issue won’t come again. What we can promise is to always put our client’s satisfaction first regardless of what happens.”
Opportunities
As stated earlier, in the wake of challenges arise plentiful opportunities. While YouHodler experienced significant growth in Q1 2021, we as a team could still do better, and we plan to do so. We’ve noticed a trend in our community that tends to favor bullish conditions and we want to change that mindset. There are opportunities to be had in every single movement of the crypto market.
(Which is why we introduced Lock Trading abilities last year)
Profits don’t only occur during bull runs. Crypto is a 24 hour market, 365 days a year, for life. There is no excuse to not take advantage of price swings in either direction. Failure to do so is partly due to a community mindset and partly due to the efficiency of our platform. That’s why we aim to keep improving our platform day by day to make it the best possible option for you to HODL and grow your portfolio regardless of market conditions.
We’ve heard all your suggestions and we assure you, they are being worked on. We have tons of exciting tasks to look forward to in Q2 and we can’t wait to announce them. Keep the constructive criticism coming because YouHodler thrives on community engagement and feedback. We made this platform for you and it cannot grow without you.
So thank you for a great first quarter of the year and see you in another three months for the Q2 review!