The leading U.S. currency exchange, Coinbase, introduced official rules for listing new digital assets, and also suggested to the project creators a tool with which they can submit relevant applications.
This is usually a very cautious exchange, but this time it changed its position regarding the listing of new cryptocurrencies. The platform opened its doors to the new digital coins. Assets that are considered reliable enough and meet their criteria for listing are likely to be available on Coinbase in the near future.
Today we’re announcing a new listing process that will allow us to rapidly add most digital assets that meets our standards and are compliant with local law, while providing our customers with the tools to discover, evaluate, trade, and use digital assets: https://t.co/6AteNMOnYr
— Coinbase (@coinbase) September 25, 2018
To date, there are only five cryptocurrencies available on the exchange - BTC (Bitcoin), BCH (Bitcoin.Cash), LTC (LTC/USD), ETH (ETH/USD), and ETC (ETC/USD). All the approved sites had to go through many instances before getting there. Therefore, the news about listing altcoins was a big surprise.
Coinbase did not specify its criteria for the listing, but it is likely to prioritize coins that are deemed to be decentralized, whose property is not concentrated in the hands of the project founders and that are unlikely to be classified as safe.
“We think of Coinbase as the global bridge from fiat to crypto, from the fragmented financial system of today to the open financial system of the future. We believe this new listing process allows us to quickly add assets while remaining compliant with local law and continuing to offer our customers the safe, high-quality experience they have come to expect from Coinbase,” explained in Coinbase.
As noted on the blog of the company, the search for a solution to expand the list of available coins prompted numerous user appeals. In its decision Coinbase, however, warned that due to the specifics of the country's legislation, some assets added in the future may be available only to users of certain jurisdictions. At the same time, the platform clarified that some assets can be added at its discretion even without filing an application for listing.
By the way, it is worth noting that new coins that will pass the listing procedure will be added without any fee. Although according to the Business Insider study, the crypto exchanges charge $50,000 to $1 million for listing tokens on their platforms. Therefore, the statement of Coinbase that the listing will be free for crypto projects has caused skepticism among Reddit users:
“They will probably list for free, but only if you have a legal review, a marketing package, and other stuff, just like many other exchanges. Free does not exist here,” the user under the nickname rookert42 said.
Recall, in July, representatives of the platform reported that they are studying the possibility of adding Cardano, Basic Attention Token, Stellar Lumens, Zcash and 0x.
This statement caused a mixed response in the crypto community. Particularly dissatisfied were the fans of other coins. They were sure that their favorite crypto projects also deserve a place in the list of candidates and fully correspond to the set of criteria (Digital Asset Framework, DAF) for Coinbase listing new coins, which appeared in November 2017.
DAF is a set of criteria that allows you to determine whether the cryptocurrency meets the conditions of the listing on Coinbase. It consists of six sections: mission and values, technology, legal norms and their implementation, market supply, demand and crypto economics.
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