Build your own Coinbase with Claude Code

A crypto exchange app: prices and charts for coins, watchlist and alerts, portfolio tracker and more.

Big buildPayments, real-time, regulation or heavy infrastructure

The Claude Code prompt

Build my own take on Coinbase: a crypto exchange app. Give it an original name, logo, colours and copy, and do not use Coinbase's name, branding or assets.

Version one should have:
- Prices and charts for coins
- Watchlist and alerts
- Portfolio tracker
- Buy and sell via a partner
- Learn section

The hard part: Custody is heavily regulated. Build a tracker with read-only exchange APIs instead.

How to build it:
1. Read this folder first. If it is empty, set up Next.js (App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind) with Postgres through Prisma or Supabase, and Supabase Auth or Auth.js for sign-in. Write a short PLAN.md with the data model, screens, third-party services and what you are leaving out of version one.
2. Build the core loop end to end before anything else: prices and charts for coins, working with real data saved to the database.
3. Add the rest of the features one at a time, and seed realistic demo data so every screen looks alive.
4. Keep API keys in environment variables, and put any paid service behind a small interface with a local stub, so the app runs on a fresh machine without accounts.
5. Run it, click through every screen on desktop and mobile widths, fix what breaks, and finish with a summary of what works, what is stubbed and how to deploy it.

Paste it into Claude Code in an empty folder. It plans first, so read PLAN.md and steer before it starts building.

Version one

  • Prices and charts for coins
  • Watchlist and alerts
  • Portfolio tracker
  • Buy and sell via a partner
  • Learn section

The hard part

Custody is heavily regulated. Build a tracker with read-only exchange APIs instead.

Make it yours: a niche Coinbase ignores, an original name and brand, and one feature it does badly done well.

More to build

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