Coinbase Lists BAT After Months Of Speculation

As reported by Ethereum World News on Friday afternoon, after months of speculation and unbridled hope, San Francisco-based Coinbase announced that it had plans to list Basic Attention Token (BAT), the native digital asset of the Brave Browser, on its professional-centric platform, the similarly named Coinbase Pro.

BAT is launching on Coinbase Pro! Starting at 1pm PT today, customers can transfer BAT into their Coinbase Pro account. Traders can deposit BAT, but cannot place or fill orders. Order books will remain in transfer-only mode for at least 12 hours. https://t.co/31wbi09uyx pic.twitter.com/2YC7xtOjuI — Coinbase Pro (@CoinbasePro) November 2, 2018

The announcement, which came via a tweet and an accompanying blog post, revealed that starting on Friday, Coinbase Pro would allow its clients to deposit BAT tokens, which are based upon the Ethereum Network. Once “sufficient liquidity is established,” the American crypto startup intends to open trading for its BAT/USD Coin (USDC) order book.

Interestingly, users “in most jurisdictions” will have access to the popular Ethereum token, except for those who reside in the state of New York, where the regulatory climate surrounding financial institutions is a lot more strict. Like Coinbase Pro’s previous listing events surrounding Ethereum Classic (ETC) and 0x (ZRX), BAT trading will be rolled out in a four-step/stage process — transfer-only, post-only, limit-only, and full trading.

It is important to note that for now, BAT will not be available via Coinbase Consumer, better known as Coinbase.com, or through the startup’s iOS and Android applications, but the crypto firm added that it will make a separate announcement when the time comes.

Due to the colloquially-dubbed “Coinbase Effect,” BAT is currently up 13.5% at the time of writing and is valued at $0.291 a piece.

Stellar’s XLM, ADA, ZEC Still On The Coinbase Chopping Block

Months ago, as you likely recall, Coinbase, a crypto-centric upstart now valued at a jaw-dropping $8 billion, unexpectedly revealed that it was pondering the listing of five popular altcoins — Stellar Lumens (XLM), 0x (ZRX), Cardano (ADA), ZCash (ZEC), and Basic Attention Token (BAT).

In the original announcement, the quickly expanding company wrote:

We are exploring the addition of several new assets, and will be working with local banks and regulators to add them in as many jurisdictions as possible.

While the startup went radio silent on the matter for multiple months, in early-September, rumors arose that Coinbase was looking into adding 0x (ZRX). Eventually, those rumors became a reality, with the popular cryptocurrency platform revealing support for ZRX in mid-September, marking the first time that Coinbase had listed a token — an Ethereum-based one no less. Now, as aforementioned, Coinbase had added their second Ethereum token, listing BAT just two weeks after the ZRX premiere.

Considering the double-digit price surge that both ZRX and BAT subsequently saw, many have begun to consider which token/crypto asset Coinbase will add next. As it stands, ADA, XLM, and ZEC are the only crypto assets Coinbase’s chopping block, so to speak.

ZEC

Recently, the ZCash Network underwent one of its largest protocol upgrades to-date, launching the so-called Sapling Protocol that changes how the privacy-centric blockchain handles zero-knowledge proof transactions. Due to this upgrade, many exchanges have shut down ZEC deposit and withdrawal abilities, for the time being, indicating that Sapling may have drastically changed how platforms accept, process, and send ZEC. Not only have the technical logistics changed for exchanges, but the regulatory climate surrounding ZEC, which is centered around private transactions, is still up in the air. These two factors could indicate that Coinbase won’t list the asset in the near future.

ADA

While Cardano has proven itself to be a leading network in today’s cryptocurrency realm, some are skeptical about ADA’s short-term success. Due to the fact that the Cardano Network is in its infancy, in spite of the heavyweight team backing the project, there have been many that aren’t ready to see ADA on Coinbase… or at least in the next few months anyway.

XLM

Unsurprisingly, many pundits of the Stellar Network and its native asset, Stellar Lumens (XLM), have been waiting for Coinbase’s validation for years. Jed McCaleb-backed Stellar, which somewhat unlike Cardano, has a mostly fully-fledged ledger up-and-running, has been seen as the primary contender for Coinbase’s next listing due to the real-world adoption and utilization of the popular network.

Interestingly, out of the three aforementioned cryptocurrencies, Lumens rose the most following the BAT announcement, potentially alluding to the market’s sentiment that Coinbase will be listing XLM next.

Title Image Courtesy of Billy Huynh on Unsplash