App Critique of Coinbase's Crypto Portfolio Dashboard and Redesign Priorities
Company: Coinbase
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a PM at Coinbase. Critique the dashboard on Coinbase's trading platform and explain how you would improve it.
```hint Start from why people open it
Someone who checks a few holdings once a week and someone who trades several times a day open the dashboard for different reasons. Decide whose visit you are improving and what that person needs to learn or do in the first few seconds before you list any features.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Which surface is in scope: the home and portfolio screen of the main Coinbase app that most retail customers see, or the advanced trading view built for active traders?
- Is the goal to grow trading activity, to keep funded customers coming back, or to help customers understand their holdings and risk?
- Should the answer focus on mobile, web, or both?
- Do holdings beyond spot crypto, such as staking rewards and stablecoin balances, belong on the dashboard?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A critique rooted in what specific Coinbase customers come to the dashboard to do, rather than a list of visual complaints.
- A clear segment choice, such as occasional holders versus active traders, and that segment's main pain points with the current screen.
- Prioritized improvements reasoned through impact, effort and risk.
- Success metrics tied to the chosen goal, with guardrails against nudging customers into overtrading or panic selling.
- Risks particular to crypto: volatility, misleading performance figures, and regulatory limits on anything that reads as investment advice.
### Follow-up Questions
- After your change, trades per user rise, but so does the share of customers who sell during sharp price drops. Is that a win, and how would you decide?
- How would the dashboard differ for a customer holding one asset bought years ago and one trading twenty assets every week?
- How would you show profit and loss for crypto a customer transferred in from an outside wallet, where Coinbase does not know the purchase price?
Overview: A product critique question about the dashboard customers see on Coinbase's crypto trading platform. It tests whether a PM candidate can identify who opens the dashboard and why, uncover real pain points, prioritize improvements, and set success metrics with guardrails suited to a volatile, regulated product.