Coinbase Exploring Support for 18 New Digital Assets

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States is considering offering support for a variety of new digital assets.

According to a June 10 blog post from Coinbase, the exchange is exploring support for Aave (LEND), Aragon (ANT), Arweave (AR), Bancor (BNT), Compound Coin (COMP), DigiByte (DGB), Horizen (ZEN), Livepeer (LPT), NuCypher (NKMS), Numeraire (NMR), KEEP Network, Origin Protocol (OGN), Ren (REN), Render Network (RNDR), Siacoin (SC), SKALE Network, Synthetix (SNX), and VeChain (VET). However, Coinbase is not considering adding Siafunds (SF).

Coinbase did not give a timeline for listing these assets. The blog said the process required “significant technical and compliance review” in addition to some regulatory approval.

“We will add new assets on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis, subject to applicable review and authorizations,” the announcement stated. “Our customers can expect Coinbase to make future, similar announcements as we continue to explore the addition of numerous assets across the platform.”

Coinbase Custody, the international institutional cryptocurrency holdings arm of the exchange, appears to have accidentally announced stablecoin Tether (USDT) would be part of the token expansion in a Tweet earlier today. However, the announcement referencing USDT on Coinbase has since been deleted.

Good for token prices

When Coinbase adds support for new digital assets, bullish behavior can often follow. Cointelegraph reported that when the exchange announced it would be adding Stellar Lumen (XLM) in March 2019, the token gained around 5.66 percent on the day. Much of MakerDAO’s (MKR) recent doubling in price has been attributed to it being added to Coinbase.

Vechain (VET) price. Source: Coinbase

Shortly after the Coinbase announcement when live, the price of VET shot up from $0.0081 to $0.0091, an increase of 12.34%. DGB also surged at the end of the day, rising above $0.02 for the first time in weeks. 

Still calls to ‘delete Coinbase’

Unfortunately, some members of the crypto community remain upset with Coinbase and the hashtag #DeleteCoinbase is trending on Twitter.

“They dropped the ball with the last outage. This may be too little too late,” said Reddit user itscbj.

Recent outages during Bitcoin (BTC) price surges coupled with the news Coinbase may sell its blockchain intelligence arm to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has prompted massive withdrawals from the platform. 

On June 7, users of the exchange withdrew 22,000 more BTC than they deposited — a difference of $214 million. Celsius Network Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Alex Mashinsky even chimed in, saying the platform had received more than $70 million in deposits last week as users shifted funds from Coinbase.