YouHodler Quarterly Review: Q2 2021
If you’re reading this, then congratulations! You’ve made it through the second quarter of 2021 and still managed to keep your interest in cryptocurrency. To say the least, it was a tough quarter. The absurd highs of Q1 came crashing down, leaving crypto enthusiasts to test their faith in this technology. Many couldn’t handle it but for those that stuck around, congratulations. The market is looking bright yet again.
It wasn’t all bad news though. Q2 was one of YouHodler’s most productive quarters yet. We’re continuing to grow our community, improve our services and cement our legacy as a premier FinTech platform throughout Europe and beyond. Here’s a quarterly review for those that missed out.
Q2 market news recap: El Salvador, China and the story of the whales
In June 2021, El Salvador became the world’s first country to make Bitcoin (BTC) legal tender. The news sent shockwaves through the industry, boosting the price of BTC several percentage points and igniting hype throughout the universe that this current bull run was not over yet.
Adding more positive news on top, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced he instructed a state-owned power company to use cheap, clean geothermal energy from the country's volcano network for bitcoin mining operations. This was welcome news following Elon Musk’s criticism of bitcoin mining energy usage during Q1 2021.
That day, President Bukele tweeted that bitcoin mining in El Salvador will be “very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable with 0 emissions energy.” Unfortunately, President Bukele’s words were not inspiring to the world’s number one supplier of bitcoin mining, China.
China bans bitcoin...again
For perhaps the 50th time (everyone is losing count), China banned bitcoin in Q2 2021. This time was a bit different, however. In May, rumors started circulating that China was going to implement new regulations against bitcoin mining. These rumors came into fruition in early June that had a massive effect on the market.
On June 21, the People’s Bank of China demanded that banks and payment firms shut down all the accounts of people involved in crypto mining and transactions. The news resulted in nearly $400 billion in total market value being wiped from the crypto market. This is because China’s top mining pools contribute to well over 50% of all global bitcoin processing power.
The unexpected event dumped bitcoin down to $28,600, its lowest level since the beginning of the year. While many top analysts called for the start of a new bear market and the death of Bitcoin, another situation played out entirely.
Bitcoin mining decentralized again and whales buy the dip
What few expected following China’s bitcoin mining ban was a swift and efficient migration of mining operations from China to different parts of the world. Within hours of hearing the news, China miners started moving mining hardware to bitcoin-friendly regions like Kazakhstan, Texas, U.S.A., and Easter Europe. A major critique of bitcoin mining in the past was its centralization problem.
With most of the bitcoin mining operations happening in China, there was a very real fear that China could control bitcoin prices if they wanted to. Instead, they chose to reject the notion altogether and actually forced something healthy for the mining industry in the long term. Crypto “whales” perhaps understood this more than anyone.
After BTC’s price dropped below $30,000 the whales saw this as an enormous buying opportunity. The week of May 27th saw whales buy more than 77,000 bitcoin last week (the equivalent of $3 billion at the time). A market intel report from Chainalysis stated that the majority of buyers from this event came from hedge funds and asset managers. While retail investors largely sold the negative China news, whales saw a major buying opportunity and acted upon it.
As of July, Q2, Bitcoin is making its way toward $40,000 once again with overall market sentiment trending towards the bullish. Speaking of positive trends, YouHodler has a few of our own to share with you.
YouHodler hits all Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Q2
Contrary to what one may think, Q2 was an extremely successful quarter for YouHodler. We withstood the market drop and not only retained our current users but grew the number of our accounts drastically.
For example, in Q2 2021, we increased the number of new accounts by 122% and increased the number of monthly active users by 146%.
Zooming in to our platform, we can also see growth amongst specific features. Our most popular feature Multi HODL for example saw new users increase by 113% with a total of over 50,000 unique deals.
The most improved feature of Q2 was the YouHodler exchange service. Users processed over 50,000 conversions (up 135% from Q1) and the number of unique users increased 134%.
In terms of traffic, YouHodler experienced a 16.25% increase in clicks, a 50.73% increase in impressions, and a -3.3% decrease in click-through rate (CTR). Considering the bearish market sentiment all over the news in Q2, seeing an increase in search results and clicks gives YouHodler confidence that the market is still growing on the whole and there is great hope for the future of 2021.
More company updates and big wins
Besides the statistical KPI achievements YouHodler enjoyed in Q2, there were also several business developments and platform update events that helped make YouHodler more user-friendly and beneficial to users.
Some highlights included:
YouHodler platform update
In April, YouHodler completed a platform-wide update that reduced fees and commission on conversions and Multi HODL. Additionally, we introduced market price rates meaning every single conversion uses the most accurate market rate possible. The fee reduction also allowed users more flexibility in asset management on the platform, eliminating the need to move elsewhere for fund exchange.
Furthemore, YouHodler got a major facelift in the UX/UI department. The platform is now cleaner, faster, and more user-friendly than ever. Our goal is to help crypto newbies and experts alike easily build financial bridges between the old world of finance and the new one
YouHodler lists several new high-profile coins/tokens
Q2 was a great quarter for new listings. Thanks to high client demand, we added several new high profile coins and tokens to the platform:
- Bancor (BNT)
- 0x (ZRX)
- Binance USD (BUSD)
Follow the links to learn more about these great new additions to the YouHodler family.
Conclusion of our Tesla for crypto promotion
The month of May saw the conclusion of our highly popular “Tesla for Crypto” promotion. It was a dramatic ending, especially with all the negative energy between former lovers Tesla and Bitcoin. However, throughout all the drama a winner prevailed. Eduardo from Chile claimed his prize and even gave us a great little interview in this recap blog post.
Overall, it was a fantastic, community-building event. We all had so much fun doing it that we decided to launch a brand new pomo this month called “Crypto Journey.” Read all about it here so you can enter and perhaps even win a prize as Eduardo did in Q2.
Turbocharge feature now available on Android and iOS
Turbocharge, the “chain of loans” feature that everyone knows and loves from our desktop app is finally available on mobile devices (Android and iOS). Do you have faith in the future of the crypto market? If so, then you probably want to buy more crypto now while it’s cheap. Turbocharge helps you buy more crypto with a smaller amount of starting capital. Use a chain of loans to multiply your portfolio and profit later when the market rises. Check it out on your app today!
Challenges
Unlike Q1, the largest challenges from Q2 did not arise from our platform or clients. Instead, YouHodler was faced with something much larger than ourselves. The overall market sentiment--boosted by “FUD” on social media--made it quite hard to maintain morale in Q2.
As we all remember, Q2 started hot, with almost every top cryptocurrency experiencing a new all-time high. People started putting down payments on vacation homes, buying fancy sports cars, and gloating on social media. Meanwhile, the Fear and Greed Index was blasting off to 100% greed and the market paid the price.
Blame Elon, China, or whoever you want but the fact of the matter is, the market dropped nearly 50% in a matter of weeks. Even now, social media is filled with a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). The community is split whether we’re entering a bear market or we still have room in the tank for another leg up. We’ve seen these debates occur in our community for the past three months and it’s been a challenge to maintain order and keep spirits high. However, whenever there are challenges arise new opportunities as well.
Opportunities
If we learned anything from this quarter it’s that price moves in waves. The price of the crypto market never goes straight up nor does it only go straight down. The price moves in waves regardless of which direction it’s trending in. Hence, that means there are always opportunities for you to find a competitive advantage and profit.
This quarter more than ever showed YouHodler that we have created the right tools for our community. Whether you want to play it safe during market corrections and simply earn interest or be aggressive with your long or short positions, it’s possible on YouHodler.
Q3 is going to be a very interesting quarter and likely, it will tell us if we are in for more bearish times ahead or back on track for this bull run. We will keep a close eye on the market and adjust our platform accordingly to benefit you.
Currently, we have great opportunities to win travel prizes, earn passive income with our high USDT interest rate, convert all crypto with low fees and capitalize on market volatility using our Multi HODL tool. Really, the opportunities are endless in Q3 and we’re looking forward to seeing our community benefit from them.
Do you want to work for YouHodler? (We’re hiring!)
The last quarter saw YouHodler onboard some great new people to our team. For example, we continued to expand our talented development team with several great additions. We also started our investor relations program with our new teammate Monica Chauhan heading the department
Our growth is not slowing down though and there are plenty of opportunities available. To see our full list of open job opportunities, please visit our careers page. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
To the rest of our community, thanks for hanging in there through the turbulent quarter. One last time, congratulations to those with “diamond hands” and for those that sold, it’s still early to get in and capitalize on the future of finance!