When Coinbase officially announced it was shutting down its Web3 Walletfeature on July 7, 2025, the move seemed foreseeable. It was a discontinuation of an adjacent product in favor of the Coinbase Wallet. But what many users didn’t expect were the events that followed, leaving some users confused about access to their assets.

The Web3 Wallet originally allowed users to mint NFTs, swap tokens, and access decentralized applications directly from Coinbase’s main app. To casual users, it looked like a self-custody product. But, unlike the standalone Coinbase Wallet app, which gives users full control of their private keys and seed phrase, Coinbase explainsthe Web3 wallet is a crypto wallet where “Coinbase holds half of your private key, while the other half is stored on your device.”

This distinction mattered when the Web3 Wallet’s sunset plan began.

Despite multiple warning emails and in-app notifications, the migration process left many users confused. Part of the problem was functionality.

“I Thought I Owned My Crypto”

Before July 7, the Web3 Wallet still allowed users to hold and interact with diverse assets through manual transfers or bridging, even though the wallet didn’t officially support engagements with networks like Base or Binance Smart Chain. This blurred the lines of support and led many to assume their assets would remain accessible after the feature was deprecated.

On several public forums like Reddit, including in the official Coinbase subreddit, users vented about broken migration tools and the fear that their crypto had vanished:

Coinbase is closing our web3 wallet and erasing it from existence without helping us recover funds stuck in other chains like the bsc chain.

— jorikisthebest, from r/CoinBase

…Support is useless. They don’t open tickets and don’t respond.

The wallet is going to sunset with the money stuck.

— wordsareloaded, fromr/CoinBase

Users continually described the process of trying to recover funds as a perpetual cycle of useless warnings to migrate, broken instructions, and support channels that circled back to the same answers given to them before.

But this problem was not just limited to Base or BSC. Users also struggled to access assets on supported networks such as Ethereum and Polygon. These holdings remain visible on-chain, but no longer appear in the Coinbase app and cannot be moved through it. Some experienced users chose not to migrate because the alternatives did not feel more secure. In some cases, assets may still be visible elsewhere, using blockchain analytics tools, but are currently immobilized.

Ahead of the purported July 7 cutoff, many users attempted to migrate their holdings and contacted Coinbase support multiple times. Each time, they received the same generic instructions: links to FAQ and Help pages they had already exhausted.

When the deadline passed, their assets didn’t disappear; they became invisible in the Coinbase app. NFTs on Ethereum and Polygon, including Banksy NFTs, as well as tokens on Avalanche and Base, no longer showed up in the interface.

Despite user testimonials and on-chain analysis suggesting the scope extends beyond unsupported chains, a Coinbase spokesperson provided the following response to the aforementioned problems with its Web3 Wallet sunset process:

Coinbase is aware that some users had difficulty accessing assets through their Web3 Wallet that were allowed to be sent to unsupported networks like BSC as a result of a bug in the product. Users affected by this bug, who reached out to us prior to July 7, were reimbursed in-kind with USDC for any assets stuck on BSC. Coinbase has never claimed to support access to BSC or other unsupported networks.

Further, Coinbase states that affected users, who reached out prior to the July deadline, were reimbursed in-kind. In other words, users did not get their original tokens back — they were reimbursed in stablecoin. The distinction is noteworthy. Assets were replaced, not recuperated.

A Seasoned User Left in Limbo

Among those caught in this issue is Joey Dunne, better known in the crypto community as “LeDrop WithCheese.” Dunne is not a casual participant in the space — he’s a longtime user with deep familiarity in managing wallets, interacting with decentralized applications, and safeguarding assets. His background makes him an unlikely candidate to be tripped up by a migration process.

Yet, Dunne’s experience shows that the confusion was not limited to beginners. Despite his expertise, he has documented assets that remain visible on-chain but inaccessible through Coinbase’s interface, effectively frozen in place. His careful tracking of the issue — including screenshots and blockchain records — highlights how even technically literate users were left without a clear path forward.

By virtue of his visibility and credibility within crypto circles, Dunne’s case has come to represent the broader set of problems users are facing. His situation cuts through the narrative that these were simply “unsupported network” errors or the result of user misunderstanding. Instead, it underscores the structural flaws of a wallet product built on shared custody — where even experienced hands can end up stranded when the provider changes the rules.

Web3 Wallet Sunset Problems Highlights ‘Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins’ Issue

Let’s be clear, accessing the wallet is still available and Coinbase updated the help article to reflect the removal of the July deadline. Currently, every time a user opens their wallet, there is a pop-up message warning them to remove their assets because the Web3 Wallet will eventually no longer be supported.

Nevertheless, confusion is created when a product blurs the line between convenience and control. The crypto community has long preached the gospel of self-custody. The saying goes ‘not your keys, not your coins.’ But as centralized exchanges try to onboard the masses with smoother interfaces and lower friction, that clarity is becoming more opaque.

Coinbase’s Web3 Wallet sunset is not just a product shutdown. It’s a warning: if you don’t fully hold your keys, you may not own your crypto at all.

Updated, Oct. 8:An earlier version of this article misstated the date when Web3Wallet users could lose access to their assets, and it didn’t include a comment from Coinbase. The article has been updated to reflect a more recent company statement regarding access and the article now includes statements from Coinbase staff about the company’s policies and reimbursements.

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