Coinbase’s direction for new asset listings has received mixed views from the community. While the decentralized nature of the move was revered by many, some have questioned the choice of projects that have been selected. Gauging some community reactions, the article sheds some more light on Coinbase’s move.
What happened?
In an effort to become more transparent, popular US-based crypto exchange Coinbase decided to pre-release a list of digital assets that are under its radar for a potential listing in the second quarter of 2022. The list highlighted 50 assets that had the potential to be listed on the exchange platform over the coming months, including 45 ERC-20 tokens and 5 Solana Program Library tokens.
A few hours after the announcement, some tokens, such as Big Data Protocol (BDP) and Dope Wars Paper [PAPER] and saw massive spikes. BDP rose by 125%, while PAPER climbed by 85% at the time of writing.
Coinbase Under Fire
The announcement, seemingly straightforward and pragmatic at first, was called out by several members of the community. Not because of the latest decision, but because of the choice of selected tokens.
Vocal crypto proponent, under the pseudonym ‘Cobie‘, argued that a few projects mentioned by Coinbase were subject to rug pulls, massive sell-offs, or had become totally irrelevant.
In a dig taken at Coinbase’s ‘standards’, he vetted out the likes of Big Data Protocol, Student Coin, and Polkamon, each of which was nowhere close to the crypto spotlight in the recent past.
Others opinioned that Coinbase’s purview was done without prior insight and just to bump up trading fees.
Fact Check
Before delving into the unknown, it’s worth noting that Coinbase’s direction is part of its asset expansion strategy which has been in place for nearly a year now. Under the strategy, Coinbase will allow the trading of riskier assets, ultimately permitting users to make their own risk-adjusted decisions while trading such tokens.
Furthermore, it’s possible that Coinbase is cutting down on its rigid listing requirements to remain a dominant force amongst its peers. As per Coinmarketcap, Coinbase ranks second among top cryptocurrency spot exchanges, outranking FTX, Kraken, and KuCoin.
Yes, Coinbase has mentioned some questionable projects that are under its radar but its core listing standards remain deep-rooted nonetheless. Moving on, only time will tell whether the communities’ cautious tone was justified, or whether Coinbase had a trick up its sleeve.