Coinbase Card Usage Decline: Root-Cause Diagnosis and Recovery Plan

You are a PM at Coinbase. The team has seen usage of the Coinbase card fall. Work out why that might be happening, and propose ways to address it. ```hint Break usage apart first Before naming causes, split "usage" into how many cardholders use the card, how often each of them uses it, and how much they spend per purchase, and find which part moved. Then think about what a cardholder gives up each time they pay with crypto instead of cash. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - How is "usage" defined here: active cardholders, transactions per active cardholder, or total spend? Which of them dropped? - When did the drop start, was it sudden or gradual, and is it concentrated in certain countries, cardholder cohorts or funding assets? - Were there recent changes to rewards, fees, eligibility, the card's issuer or processor, or the card screens in the app? - Did the drop coincide with a large move in crypto prices or a change in trading activity on Coinbase? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Defining the metric and decomposing it into cardholders, frequency and purchase size before forming hypotheses. - A structured set of internal and external causes, including those unique to a card that spends crypto, checked in a sensible order that starts with data problems. - The specific data cuts that would confirm or rule out each cause. - Solutions matched to the confirmed cause rather than a default rewards boost, with a way to test them. - Success metrics with guardrails on rewards cost, fraud and declined transactions. ### Follow-up Questions - The drop lines up closely with a fall in crypto prices. Is that the full explanation, and should the product respond at all? - Declined transactions spiked in one merchant category. How would you investigate? - Finance proposes cutting the rewards rate to save money while usage is falling. How would you evaluate that proposal?