Earn.com, a platform that gives users cryptocurrencies for doing tasks such as replying to emails, announced on Monday it is being acquired by digital wallet and crypto exchange, Coinbase. As part of the acquisition, Earn’s Co-Founder and CEO, Balaji Srinivasan, will join Coinbase and assume the role as Coinbase’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
Founded in 2017, Earn.com allows senders to pay users in digital currency for replying to emails and completing tasks. The company reports that thousands of senders have sent millions of dollars worth of paid messages through its platform for recruiting, fundraising, and marketing. It was also revealed:
“Empirically, we find that Earn.com senders get 30–70% response rates within 24 hours for $1–10 incentives, even for messages with many thousands of recipients. This is extraordinarily high relative to the typical 1.7% response rates for cold emails. As such, any business that sends cold email or conducts surveys can benefit from Earn.com.”
While addressing the acquisition, Earn.com noted that everything will continue as before in the short term for users and senders, with the exception that it will put its token launch on the back burner and will now focus on integrating with Coinbase’s infrastructure and scaling services. The company then reported:
“Over the last several years, the primary way most people have obtained cryptocurrency is through buying it, with many of these transactions facilitated by Coinbase. With this acquisition, we allow users to also earn crypto by doing things they already know how to do — like replying to emails and filling out surveys. If we’re successful in our long-term goals, we will be able to turn the billions of smartphones worldwide into a new source of work. Open the Earn.com app in any country — and receive a personalized, targeted list of paid microtasks and emails just for you. Thanks to the blockchain, anywhere there’s a phone, there’s a job. We think that’s an exciting vision and we’re going to work hard on achieving that at Coinbase!”
Coinbase also noted that it is planning to double down on the Earn business within its platform due to the fact that Earn has built a paid email product that is considered one of the earliest practical blockchain applications to achieve traction. Neither companies have disclosed acquisition information.