Coinbase is poised to list its first new crypto assets of 2018 and one coin that's unlikely to make the list is ripple. The U.S. exchange, whose CEO Brian Armstrong is known for his love of all things ethereum, has all but confirmed that its next additions will be ERC20 tokens. 0x and REP (Augur's native token) surged in price as investors hone in on the likeliest tokens to make the cut.
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New Coinbase Listings Cause a Ripple
Crypto traders have been starved of positive news for weeks. Thus they leapt on the news, released Monday evening, that Coinbase was set to list new tokens. The last time the U.S. exchange added a new asset was back in December in the form of bitcoin cash. That one didn't go so well, with accusations of insider trading that pumped the price in advance of the news leading to a lawsuit. This time around, Coinbase has sought to break the news gently, confirming that it will add support for ERC20 tokens, leaving only the question of which assets it will anoint. The exchange wrote:
We're excited to announce our intention to support the Ethereum ERC20 technical standard for Coinbase in the coming months. This paves the way for supporting ERC20 assets across Coinbase products in the future, though we aren't announcing support for any specific assets or features at this time.
Coinbase Loves Ethereum
Brian Armstrong's love affair with the ethereum ecosystem is well documented. The CEO was previously pilloried for tinkering with ethereum dapp browsers at a time when bitcoin transaction fees were sky-high and Coinbase had yet to implement batching or Segwit. It makes sense that Coinbase would add ethereum tokens ahead of, say, ripple, which has pumped at least twice this year over false Coinbase rumors.
Diar's weekly crypto newsletter, released on Monday morning, appears to have called it right. It contains an analysis of the criteria Coinbase uses to decide which assets to list. Ripple may not qualify because Coinbase decrees it essential that "the ownership stake retained by the team is a minority stake", and as everyone knows, most of the XRP in existence resides with Ripple. The same reasoning could also preclude stellar from being added, while dash, despite its high liquidity and existing fiat trading pairs (another Coinbase requirement), may be ruled out due to its anonymity features.
Diar's tip for Coinbase inclusion, augur, seems likely, as does 0x, a project boasting three advisors who are current or former Coinbase employees. Both assets, together with ERC20 tokens such as OMG and SNT, jumped in price off the news, but were unable to sustain their momentum amidst another red day for the markets. Having just featured in the intro to HBO's Silicon Valley, Coinbase has been having a good week.