Coinbase Takes DeFi Focus as it Looks to List 19 New Crypto Assets

Nick Chong

4 years ago

3 mins read

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One of the biggest crypto narratives over the past few months has been decentralized finance — better known as “DeFi.” Coins pertaining to this segment of the blockchain space have gone parabolic and users of DeFi protocols have shot up.

Coinbase, seemingly, is taking notice.

The leading crypto-asset exchange announced that it is looking to add 19 altcoins in the near future. Much of those tokens are DeFi related.

Coinbase Is Looking to List 19 New Tokens — Many of Which Are DeFi

According to a Coinbase blog published on July 31st, the company is looking to add 19 digital assets. “As part of the exploratory process customers may see public-facing APIs and other signs that we are conducting engineering work to potentially support these assets,” the company wrote on its efforts to support these assets.

The cryptocurrencies listed by Coinbase in this announcement are as follows:

Ampleforth
Band Protocol
Balancer
Blockstack
Curve
Fetch.ai
Flexacoin
Helium
Hedera Hashgraph
Kava
Melon
Ocean Protocol
Paxos Gold
Reserve Rights
tBTC
The Graph
THETA
UMA
WBTC

Some of these cryptocurrencies, including Curve (CRV), are not yet live on their respective blockchains.

Coinbase claims that this latest announcement is aligned with their long-term goal to support a swath of cryptocurrencies:

Coinbase’s goal is to offer support for all assets that meet our technical standards and which comply with applicable laws. Over time we expect our customers around the world will have access through Coinbase platforms to at least 90% of the aggregate market cap of all digital assets in circulation.

Logos of crypto assets that Coinbase intends to add in the coming months (Source: Coinbase).

To confirm the cryptocurrencies listed will be launched, Coinbase says it will be assessing “factors like security, compliance, and the project’s alignment with our mission of creating an open financial system for the world.”

Coinbase Is Looking to Go Public

Coinbase’s listing spree (or planned listing spree) comes as the company is looking to go public on American stock exchanges.

Per Reuters, three “people familiar with the matter” have confirmed that Coinbase is looking to undergo a stock market listing that may take place this year. Coinbase has purportedly been in talks with investment banks and law firms to establish a plan for this listing.

Analysts say that the crypto unicorn’s public listing intent is positive for the underlying industry. Chris Burniske, a partner at Placeholder Capital, commented:

“[An IPO] may even come in 2020 and be this cycle’s kickoff catalyst, with DeFi providing the narrative and fundamentals. 2017’s catalyst was the Winklevoss BTC ETF garnering attention and then getting rejected, shifting interest to ETH, with ICOs the narrative.”

When exactly the public listing comes to fruition, though, is not yet clear.

Nick Chong

I am a writer who has been following Bitcoin for years now. My insights and interviews have been featured in leading publications in the industry such as LongHash and Decrypt. I own a small amount of Bitcoin.

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