Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange platform, is considering adding new cryptocurrencies to its base.
On their blog, Coinbase made an internal and simultaneously public announcement, in the name of transparency, stating that they are looking into adding the following coins to their platform: Cardano (ADA), basic attention token (BAT), stellar lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), and 0x (ZRX). It isn’t clear yet what operations will be available, Coinbase state: “our listing process may result in some of these assets being listed solely for customers to buy and sell, without the ability to send or receive using a local wallet.” While this exploratory process is in movement, Coinbase promises to keep everyone updated via their blog.
It has been reported that Coinbase is also looking into the possibility to rebrand in order to acquire the license to list securities, which is a new direction for the platform that previously insisted on working with non-security coins.
Apart from increasing its already grand user base of 13 million, here are some reasons why Coinbase could have arrived at this decision:
- Competition: if before Coinbase was one of the go-to platforms to buy bitcoin and other crypto with fiat, now new exchanges are offering lower transaction fees for this procedure.
- More variety, more money: following the announcement to list new coins, such as stellar lumen and Tron, the value and trading volume of the coins rose, meaning more profit for the platform.
- Meet user demand: in order to keep the losses during the decline of the market to a minimum, there is a requirement in increasing trading options for users.
- New exchanges appearing on the market: since the overall interest in crypto is rising, there are more and more exchanges appearing on the U.S. market with some even offering free trading, which means there is a necessity for Coinbase to adjust its strategy.