Coinbase to Offer Ether, Litecoin Under New GDAX Brand

Coinbase has announced its part rebranding to GDAX following its decision to support Ether (ETH), with Litecoin (LTC) also “in the works.”

Also read: Ripple & Coinbase Expected to Obtain NY BitLicense

Litecoin & Ether Trading on GDAX

A week after its fourth birthday, the service made an initial “clarifying announcement” via Twitter Thursday:

To clarify, Coinbase (our consumer product) is not rebranding. Coinbase Exchange (for professional traders) is rebranding to @GDAX. — Coinbase (@coinbase) May 19, 2016

The consumer portal will retain the Coinbase brand.

In addition to the name change, vice president for business development, Adam White, stated that support for Ethereum currency Ether was due to begin May 24 for traders and later in summer for all users.

White also explained Coinbase’s professional trading platform would soon be operating under the tag “Global Digital Asset Exchange” (GDAX) – “better highlighting the exchange that Coinbase is becoming.”

Ethereum creator Vitalk Buterin in March had given a talk at Coinbase’s HQ in which he outlined the future of the project, but at the time no hint was given of a potential partnership.

The move coincides with a renewed surge in the price of ETH and the accompanying trading activity. The asset has appreciated by more than 30% in the past ten days.

Today, meanwhile, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee also took to Twitter to announce Coinbase’s integration of Litecoin at an as yet unspecified date. The move will, according to Lee, see LTC/BTC and LTC/USD trading pairs made available:

Coinbase Exchange is rebranding to GDAX and will support ETH/BTC and ETH/USD trading soon. LTC/BTC and LTC/USD in the works! — Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) May 20, 2016

While interest in Ether from exchanges and significant third parties such as Microsoft is nothing new, the decision to adopt Litecoin could be considered a more unexpected move. In terms of value and trading activity, for example, Litecoin has seen a fraction of the enthusiasm centered around ETH since the start of the year.



Global Outlook

Coinbase in the meantime according to White been focused on creating a truly global resource. The move into new assets and the rebrand would appear to be just a part of the plan: four months ago, remote engineers were hired, working across the world on improving the service’s infrastructure.

“We’ve been able to tap into a lot of talented and interested engineers who live outside the Bay Area that we previously could not access,” director of recruiting Barry Kwok wrote in an update on the decision this week.

“Our early thesis is that [using remote engineers] works well up until a certain point (perhaps 30% of engineering and we are currently at 17%) and we will continue to hire remote engineers as we continue to evaluate this campaign,” he added.

Coinbase has also stated it is reinforcing its security framework following recent thefts from Gatecoin and the SWIFT hacks.

“[T]he most common ways that Bitcoin companies die is due to theft and hacking,” CEO Brian Armstrong said.

What do you think about Coinbase’s rebranding and interest in Ether and Litecoin? Get involved in the comments section below.

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