CoinLinked Review: The Social E-Commerce Platform

Here’s our take on the new platform.

What is CoinLinked?

In brief, CoinLinked is a new blockchain-based platform that combines an online marketplace with a cryptocurrency-powered social media platform. CoinLinked is designed to merge centralized and decentralized services, helping to improve crypto adoption while also offering a bridge between the cryptocurrency and e-commerce worlds. To achieve this, Jenny Q. Ta has unveiled a new solution that will allow anybody to purchase practically anything from any online store using cryptocurrencies — by using CoinLinked as a drop shipper. CoinLinked achieves this by accepting payments on behalf of each merchant in cryptocurrency and then paying each merchant in fiat. All of this is done seamlessly, behind the scenes. In addition to this, the social media component of the platform is designed to provide individuals, brands, and businesses with another avenue to express their creative endeavors — allowing them to build a follower base and community in the rapidly growing blockchain segment.

CoinLinked Features

As you might expect, CoinLinked’s main feature is its marketplace, which is designed to allow anybody to purchase items from any website in the world using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). “Our aim is to grow the crypto industry by connecting the traditional marketplaces of today with the digital currencies of tomorrow,” said Jenny Q. Ta in a recent press release. The platform also features its own native utility token — known as CoinLinked Coin ($CLC) — which currently exists as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. The token is provided as an incentive for those that interact with the platform, such as by uploading content like videos and pictures and interacting with other users and their content. As a utility token, $CLC is designed to be used on the CoinLinked platform and provides holders with a wide range of benefits. At some point, $CLC tokens will be redeemable for discounts on items sold in the built-in marketplace platform and might also be redeemed for freebies like free shipping. With that said, it’s important to bear in mind that CoinLinked has just launched, so the full range of uses for the $CLC token is likely to be elaborated over time. These tokens are currently only available on the CoinLinked platform and cannot be transferred or traded with other CoinLinked users or on secondary markets. Beyond this, CoinLinked users might also opt to become CoinLinked members by purchasing a type of premium membership that provides a range of extra benefits — including an up to 13.5 percent discount on certain crypto purchases, a nine percent discount on certain fiat purchases, and a $25 shipping credit each month. CoinLinked memberships are scheduled to launch within the next week and will cost $199 per year.

Ease of Use

If you have ever used Twitter or Instagram, then you will likely find that CoinLinked feels very familiar. The platform has a clean, intuitive user interface with all the standard buttons and features you would expect from a modern social media platform. Through the platform, you are able to follow other users, view trending posts, and create your own posts by adding text and attaching content like photos or a video. However, unlike Instagram and Twitter, you are not able to create a post that doesn’t have at least one media attachment. Much like Facebook, CoinLinked also features a built-in shopping platform — and users can also see a detailed history of their recent followers and recently earned rewards, helping users easily keep tabs on their recent performance. With that said, although getting around CoinLinked is a simple task, we did find a number of bugs while testing the platform. These include getting automatically logged out when attempting to access the store and several other parts of the site and being redirected to the home page when navigating certain menus. However, since the site just launched, a few bugs here and there are to be expected.

Getting Started with CoinLinked

Creating an account on CoinLinked is a painless process that should take just seconds. Here’s what to do. First, head over to the CoinLinked home page, where you will find the ‘Sign Up’ option. Here, enter the email address and password you wish to use when logging into your account and click the ‘Sign Up’ button. CoinLinked will send a four-digit confirmation code to the email address you chose. Enter this code back in the prompt on the CoinLinked website to complete your registration. After this, you will be asked to choose a username (much like a Twitter handle) and will be offered a small $CLC reward for following five other CoinLinked users. Once done, your CoinLinked account will then be up and running and you will be free to modify your profile, begin sharing content, and interact with other users.

Final Thoughts

Overall, while it is clear that some thought has gone into the look and feel of the CoinLinked platform, there are several major bugs that make it difficult, if not impossible, to use at present. Nonetheless, once these are ironed out, CoinLinked could represent a promising project with significant potential for growth. It’s safe to say that any platform that looks to make crypto payments more accessible to mainstream users, while bridging the gap between traditional and decentralized finance, aligns well with the overall direction of the cryptocurrency industry. However, whether or not CoinLinked achieves the success needed to accomplish its goals largely depends on whether it can generate enough momentum to attract popular users, and if users are willing to pay the 3-12 percent transaction fee for crypto to fiat purchases through the CoinLinked marketplace — this, in our opinion, seems unlikely.