Coinbase is changing the number of confirmation requirements we require for four assets on the platform. We expect this change to both improve customer experience and security posture.

What’s changed

We changed the confirmation requirements for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Zcash, and Ethereum Classic. The table below shows the changes:

Why we made these changes

The confirmation requirements for several of these currencies were determined over a year ago. At this time, we did not have a consistent approach that informed each currency’s requirement. This resulted in a situation where some assets may have had an overly conservative confirmation requirement, and some assets where the confirmation requirement may have been too low.

In the case of Bitcoin, Zcash, and Ethereum Classic, we determined that it was safe to reduce the confirmation requirement. This allows customer deposits to be confirmed on Coinbase faster than before.

In the case of Litecoin, we decided to raise the confirmation requirement. This reduces the risk that a 51% attack on Litecoin will impact Coinbase customers.

Want to learn more?

Coinbase is constantly working to ensure a good customer experience while maintaining extremely high security standards. As such, we are always looking for ways to make adjustments to our services in pursuit of both of those goals.

We have published a separate blog post on our engineering blog that dives into greater detail about how we view the security of proof of work.