Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the crypto exchange has reduced unnecessary restrictions on its users by 82%, which has been a “major issue” for the exchange. 

In a June 6 X post, Armstrong acknowledged that account freezing has been a problem “for longer than is acceptable,” and that it has become a top priority for his firm to improve.

“The issue has been reduced by 82% so far, with more improvements coming. We’ll keep you updated as further improvements roll out,” Armstrong said, before asking all customers with frozen accounts to contact Coinbase Support.

Coinbase users have expressed frustration over account restrictions for years, reporting sudden freezes lasting several months or longer, prompting some to abandon the platform. 

Customer confidence in Coinbase was also recently shaken by a mass data breach that exposed the details of more than 70,000 customer accounts.

Coinbase says fewer restrictions due to improved models

Armstrong credited the progress to Dor Levi, a member of Coinbase’s product team, who came on board nine weeks ago with the primary goal of fixing the account restrictions.

In a post of his own, Levi said much of the progress has come from making “significant investments” in Coinbase’s machine learning models and infrastructure.

“We’ve improved the precision and recall of all our models, and are seeing fewer restrictions/freezes as a result.”

Coinbase will continue to implement account restrictions imposed by court orders and sanctions to remain compliant with the law, Armstrong and Levi noted.

Despite the progress, much work remains, said Levi, who admitted that as a Coinbase user himself, the experience with account restrictions still doesn’t meet his “own bar.”

Coinbase users say they’ve been locked out for several months

In response to Armstrong’s post, one X user said they have been completely locked out of their Coinbase account for over two years, while another said they abandoned the platform after enduring an eight-month freeze.