Since crypto mania took hold in December 2017 and the price of bitcoin boomed, coin exchanges have been overrun with applications from new customers, old customers who have forgotten their passwords but who want to trade bitcoin again, and queries from new users who do not understand what they are doing.

In response to this, exchanges have been massively upscaling the size of their workforce in an effort to deal with an unprecedented wave of interest in cryptocurrencies. When bitcoin prices hit $20,000, some exchanges received over a million applications per-day to open a trading account. While the price of bitcoin has since fallen back, new users are still applying in large numbers, and the exchanges are trying their best to keep up with the new pace.

On January 18th, Bitstamp announced that it plans to hire another 100 call staff for its customer service call centre. In a blog post, Nejc Kodric, CEO at Bitstamp attempted to sum up the situation. He wrote:

"Our data confirms what was beyond even our most optimistic forecasts for customer growth in the past year. Under normal circumstances, this would be cause for celebration, but we are certainly far from feeling a celebratory mood."