DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE IS PURE SPECULATION BASED SOLELY OFF OF MY OWN RESEARCH. NOTHING IN THIS ARTICLE SHOULD BE TAKEN AS INVESTMENT ADVICE.

AS A BACKGROUND TO THIS ANALYSIS, PLEASE READ COINBASE’S STATEMENT ON ADDING NEW TOKENS

The above disclaimer is necessary before anyone reads this headline and becomes angered. This piece merely reflects my personal opinion regarding which tokens are the most likely GDAX candidates, based off of the Digital Asset Framework released by Brian Armstrong his team.

Narrowing Down the Options

It might surprise some (*sarcasm*) that the vast majority of tokens currently on the market are utter garbage. This truism allows us to quickly narrow down the universe of reputable projects to 40–50 viable candidates. From these projects, one can walk through the digital asset framework point-by-point and eliminate unlikely tokens until he is left with some likely winners. Based purely on this methodology, below are my top selections for GDAX listing in 2018. I will try to be concise for the sake of brevity.

1.1 Open Financial System — Innovation or Efficiency Gains, Economic Freedom, Equality of Opportunity, Decentralization.

The Golem Network is an open-source protocol that solves the problem of unused computing power. This computing power is made available to anyone on the network, only requiring a computer to participate. The system is sufficiently decentralized in that, even if the company behind Golem Network disappears, the network will still exist in a decentralized manner on the Ethereum blockchain (when the project is fully completed).

2.1 Security & Code — Source Code, Prototype, Security.

The code is open-source, available on Github, and no major vulnerabilities have been found. There is currently a working alpha of the product available on their website. The GNT code has been audited by OpenZepplin.

2.2 Team — Founders and Leadership, Engineering, Business & Operations, Specialized Knowledge and Key People.

The Golem Team is very strong, highly technical, and well known within the crypto-space. They regularly interact with their community on their twitter, medium and subreddit. The team is also very transparent in their progress and goals, which can be seen from the Golem roadmap. However, the team adds a degree of centralization in that they are absolutely critical to the progress of the project, given that the success of the network is dependant on them staying onboard through completion.

2.3 Governance — Consensus Process, Future Development Funding, White Paper.

There is currently no governance protocol within the Golem network or GNT token; the project is controlled by the team. To fund future development, the Golem team will rely on proceeds from their token sale. The Golem whitepaper is highly technical and explains the need for the Golem global supercomputing network.

2.4 Scalability — Roadmap, Network Operating Costs, Practical Applications, Type of Blockchain.

The Golem roadmap illustrates clear goals set out in reasonable time frames. The barriers to scaling the network heavily rely on the Ethereum network improving its scalability. Ethereum is making solid progress on this front and is already a GDAX listed token. The project currently has practical applications, as the alpha product can currently be used to render specific images.

3.1 Regulation — Securities Law, Compliance Obligations.

By analyzing Coinbase’s securities law framework, the GNT token is not considered a security token, and listing this token on GDAX would not require any additional AML/KYC requirements.

3.2 Integrity & Reputational Risk — User Agreement.

There is currently no reputational risk associated with listing GNT, because the team and project remain in good standing. Additionally, according to the Coinbase user agreement, the GNT token does not fall under the “prohibited business” classification.

4.1 Liquidity Standards — Global Market Capitalization, Asset Velocity, Circulation.

GNT is very liquid cryptoasset that can easily be traded into BTC or ETH, with a current market cap of $455 million USD (as of January 29). The Golem team do not hold the majority of the tokens, which is key in developing a healthy network. Also, comparative to most cryptoassets, the tokens are widely distributed and not overly concentrated among a small group of large investors.

4.2 Global Distribution — Total # of Exchanges, Geographic Distribution, Fiat and Crypto Pairs, Exchange Volume Distribution.

GNT is listed on 10+ exchanges and has a widespread geographical distribution. Although few fiat trading pairs currently exist, the token is easily tradable into BTC and ETH on most major exchanges in the world. Furthermore, a singular exchange does not control the majority of trade volume.

5.1 Demand — Customer Demand, Developers and Contributors, Community Activity, External Stakeholders.

There is high demand for GNT, as shown by its daily trading volume exceeding USD 10 million. The commits to Golem’s GitHub are numerous and frequent, which shows the strong developer support. The community activity is extensive within the Golem subreddit (over 18,000 subscribers), on twitter (over 160,000 followers), and on medium (over 2,000 followers). As of yet, there are a few corporate partnerships or institutional investors to my knowledge.

5.2 Network Standards — Change in Market Capitalization, Nodes, Transactions, Fees & Addresses.

The Golem market capitalization continues to grow from its 2016 token sale, and the number of nodes is increasing steadily with a current count of roughly 90 functioning nodes. As the project progresses, I expect the number of nodes to increase dramatically, leading to a massive increase in the number of GNT transactions.

6.1 Economic Incentives — Type of Token, Token Utility, Inflation Money Supply, Rewards and Penalties.

GNT is not a security but a utility token as its sole purpose is to purchase services in the Golem network. The total supply of GNT is capped at 1 billion, but the current circulating supply of tokens is 834 million, meaning that the tokens are well distributed amongst the community and the majority of tokens are not held by the Golem team.

6.2 Token Sale Structure — Security, Participation Equality, Team Ownership, Transparency, Total Supply, Ethics or Code of Conduct.

The token sale had no major incidents and overall went quite smoothly. Participation equality was suboptimal though, because the sale was structured on a first come, first served basis and there was no means of allocating each participant with a specific number of tokens. Regardless of the structure, a large number of participants were able to participate in the token sale. The Golem team was extremely responsible in the amount of tokens retained by founders (6%) and were transparent throughout the entire sale process.

1.1 Open Financial System — Innovation or Efficiency Gains, Economic Freedom, Equality of Opportunity, Decentralization.

0x is an open-source protocol that allows for the exchange of tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. 0x is open for any group or individual to implement into their project. The network is decentralized in the sense that anyone can access the code base and utilize the 0x protocol.

2.1 Security & Code — Source Code, Prototype, Security.

The code is open-source, available on Github and at the time of writing there have been zero major flaws found. The 0x protocol is currently a fully function product that is being used by multiple companies and projects. The 0x team has also created a bug bounty that will greatly enhance the security of the platform.

2.2 Team — Founders and Leadership, Engineering, Business & Operations, Specialized Knowledge and Key People.

The 0x team is an exceptionally strong, highly technical, and capable of achieving their stated objectives. They regularly interact with their community their twitter, subreddit and they often make announcements on their medium. While the 0x protocol has already achieved some degree of success, in order to reach its full potential, it is still reliant on its core team to continue developing the protocol.

2.3 Governance — Consensus Process, Future Development Funding, White Paper.

As of now, the entire 0x protocol is controlled by the 0x team. However, as the protocol evolves, the token will take on its true function, which is to act as a governance mechanism over the 0x network. Future development of the protocol will be funded from the proceeds of their 2017 token sale. The 0x whitepaper clearly explains the need for the protocol and the technical details of the project.

2.4 Scalability — Roadmap, Network Operating Costs, Practical Applications, Type of Blockchain.

The 0x roadmap is very clear with reasonable objectives, on which the team has been making steady progress. The barriers to scaling the protocol depend upon the Ethereum network achieving its scaling ambitions. However, the the project has thus far been functioning effectively. There are currently 20+ projects utilizing 0x in their platforms, and that number is expected to grow significantly in 2018.

3.1 Regulation — Securities Law, Compliance Obligations.

Based off of my research of Coinbase’s securities law framework, the ZRX token is not a security token, listing this token on GDAX will not require any additional AML/KYC requirements.

3.2 Integrity & Reputational Risk — User Agreement.

There is no reputational risk for listing ZRX because the team and project are in good standing. Also, according to the Coinbase user agreement, the ZRX token does not fall under the “prohibited business” classification.

4.1 Liquidity Standards — Global Market Capitalization, Asset Velocity, Circulation.

ZRX is an extremely liquid token, being listed on numerous exchanges and with 24-hour trading volume in excess of USD 15 million. The total market cap is roughly USD 880 million. The total supply of tokens is 1 billion, with a circulating supply of approximately 500 million. No more tokens will be created.

4.2 Global Distribution — Total # of Exchanges, Geographic Distribution, Fiat and Crypto Pairs, Exchange Volume Distribution.

There is high demand for ZRX and it is listed on over 15+ exchanges that are located all over the world. The daily trading volume is well dispersed amongst the exchanges and the vast majority of volume is not limited to a single exchange. The only current downside is that there are very few ZRX-fiat trading pairs available.

5.1 Demand — Customer Demand, Developers and Contributors, Community Activity, External Stakeholders.

There is clearly a high demand for the ZRX token with the daily trading volume exceeding USD 35 million. The activity on the 0x Github is extremely high. On the 0x subreddit there are roughly 7,800 subscribers and the subscriber growth has been increasing greatly in the past few weeks. There are numerous external stakeholders of ZRX, including multiple hedge funds, and a large amount of projects building upon the 0x protocol.

5.2 Network Standards — Change in Market Capitalization, Nodes, Transactions, Fees & Addresses.

The 0x network has grown substantially since its launch, and the market cap has grown from USD 60 million to now over USD 800 million. The number of ZRX transactions is growing rapidly, as they are needed to function decentralized exchanges that utilize the 0x protocol. As decentralized exchanges continue to become a more popular means of trading cryptoassets, ZRX will consequently achieve a broader token distribution.

6.1 Economic Incentives — Type of Token, Token Utility, Inflation Money Supply, Rewards and Penalties.

The ZRX token is not a security as its main uses are distributing governance rights of the protocol and paying fees for services utilizing the 0x platform. There will be no more tokens created, and there is a capped supply of 1 billion tokens. Currently, there is not a direct system of rewarding or penalizing specific behavior on the 0x protocol; however, with protocol governance updates due in 2018, it is possible this functionality could be added in the near-term.

6.2 Token Sale Structure — Security, Participation Equality, Team Ownership, Transparency, Total Supply, Ethics or Code of Conduct.

The 0x token sale proceeded with no major issues and was lauded for its participation equality. The 0x team was very concise with their instructions and highly transparent during the entire process. Everyone who registered beforehand was given the opportunity to participate, thus ensuring token distribution. The founders only retained 10% of tokens for themselves, which by today’s standards is relatively low. The public was able to purchase 50% of all tokens created during the sale, which is now largely considered the standard figure.

1.1 Open Financial System — Innovation or Efficiency Gains, Economic Freedom, Equality of Opportunity, Decentralization.

Augur is creating an open, decentralized prediction market. Anyone can participate in the Augur platform, allowing anyone to create a prediction and receive insight from the “crowd”. The Augur platform is built upon the Ethereum blockchain; however, the Augur team still provides a degree of centralized control to the project’s development.

2.1 Security & Code — Source Code, Prototype, Security.

The code is open-source, available on Github, and has had no reported vulnerabilities found thus far. Augur currently has a working beta product and will release their full prediction market platform within the coming year. According to the Augur team, they are currently undergoing audits to verify the absolute security of the platform before launch.

2.2 Team — Founders and Leadership, Engineering, Business & Operations, Specialized Knowledge and Key People.

The team at Augur are very well known in the crypto space, highly technical, and have been involved with crypto for a (comparatively) long period of time. The Augur team regularly interacts with their community on their subreddit, twitter and are constantly giving updates on their medium. The project is currently dependant on the Augur core team developing the platform.

2.3 Governance — Consensus Process, Future Development Funding, White Paper.

Updates to the code and Augur platform are currently controlled by the team. Funding for the future development of the platform will come from the proceeds raised during the token sale. The Augur whitepaper explains the platforms purpose in great detail and focuses on the technical aspects of the platform.

2.4 Scalability — Roadmap, Network Operating Costs, Practical Applications, Type of Blockchain.

The Augur team gives regular updates on their progress via their subreddit and medium channel. The roadmap gives concise information with clear objectives but does not specify exact time frames. In order to truly scale the network, Augur is dependent on Ethereum achieving its scaling objectives. While currently in beta, the full Augur platform is scheduled to go live in 2018.

3.1 Regulation — Securities Law, Compliance Obligations.

Based off of my research of Coinbase’s securities law framework, the REP token is not a security token and listing this token on GDAX will not require any additional AML/KYC requirements.

3.2 Integrity & Reputational Risk — User Agreement.

There is no reputational risk for listing REP because the team and project are in good standing. The downside is that, according to the Coinbase user agreement, the Augur platform could potentially fall under the “prohibited business” category because it is a prediction market, which could be equated to gambling.

4.1 Liquidity Standards — Global Market Capitalization, Asset Velocity, Circulation.

The REP token is extremely liquid and traded on numerous exchanges that are located all over the world. There are, comparatively, many trading pairs for the REP token and it is highly liquid. The total amount of REP tokens is capped at 11 million and no more will be created.

4.2 Global Distribution — Total # of Exchanges, Geographic Distribution, Fiat and Crypto Pairs, Exchange Volume Distribution.

The REP token is widely distributed throughout the world due to it being listed on 20+ exchanges. The trade volume is also widely dispersed with not one exchange controlling a majority of the trade volume. The REP token has numerous fiat to crypto trading pairs, such as REP/USD, REP/KRW, REP/JPY, REP/THB and REP/CNY.

5.1 Demand — Customer Demand, Developers and Contributors, Community Activity, External Stakeholders.

There is large customer demand for the REP token which can be seen from its large daily volume (24h volume exceeding $10 million). When the Augur platform goes live, we will see the demand for REP increase dramatically. Although the developer activity is mostly limited to the core Augur devs, the team does retain some REP in order to pay for bounties. The community activity is quite massive with the Augur subreddit exceeding 7,000 subscribers. There are no reported major external stakeholders such as VC funds or hedge funds that have invested in Augur since its inception.

5.2 Network Standards — Change in Market Capitalization, Nodes, Transactions, Fees & Addresses.

The market cap for the REP token started from under $100 million USD and is now above $1 billion USD. The only nodes on the Augur network are nodes that connect to market data and those will scale as the platform expands. The number of REP transactions have grown massively since its creation but will most likely explode when ther Augur platform is launched.

6.1 Economic Incentives — Type of Token, Token Utility, Inflation Money Supply, Rewards and Penalties.

The REP token is not deemed a security because it is used solely for operation of the Augur platform. There is a limited supply of 11 million REP tokens and no more will ever be created. The reward and penalty system on the Augur platform is quite simple: correct predictions are rewarded with REP while incorrect predictions are penalized with REP.

6.2 Token Sale Structure — Security, Participation Equality, Team Ownership, Transparency, Total Supply, Ethics or Code of Conduct.

From my understanding, the Augur token sale proceeded without any major issues including hacks or scams. The participation equality was adequate given the early distribution in 2015. The team and advisors retained only 16% of the total supply, with the rest being sold in the public sale. Overall, the team acted in a professional manner and the token sale proceeded smoothly, especially considering the young stage of the Ethereum ecosystem.

1.1 Open Financial System — Innovation or Efficiency Gains, Economic Freedom, Equality of Opportunity, Decentralization.

The Basic Attention Token (BAT) is the native currency of the Brave browser. BAT can be used to pay content creators and users, who opt to be shown ads, within the browser. This system is innovative as it creates a market that effectively monetizes users attention. The Brave browser is decentralized in that it is available for anyone to download, and the BAT token runs on the decentralized Ethereum blockchain.

2.1 Security & Code — Source Code, Prototype, Security.

The code is open-source, available on Github, and, at the time of writing, has had zero reported vulnerabilities. Not only is there a working product, the Brave browser, but BAT has been fully integrated into the platform. The BAT token is used within the Brave browser to act a unit of account between advertisers, publishers and users.

2.2 Team — Founders and Leadership, Engineering, Business & Operations, Specialized Knowledge and Key People.

The BAT team is an extremely reputable group with a founder who has a history of past success. They have a clear roadmap and regularly interact with the community on their reddit, medium and twitter. The only project downside is the level of centralization provided by the core team and founder.

2.3 Governance — Consensus Process, Future Development Funding, White Paper.

The governance of the basic attention token is currently controlled by the Brave browser team, and there are no plans to implement a governance protocol within the BAT system. For future development funding, the Brave team has retained some tokens. The project’s whitepaper is very thorough and explains the project in great technical detail.

2.4 Scalability — Roadmap, Network Operating Costs, Practical Applications, Type of Blockchain.

The Brave roadmap has clear objectives, and a significant amount was accomplished in 2017. The largest barrier for the Brave browser is adoption by users, advertisers and publishers. The BAT token is built on the Ethereum blockchain and should not face major scaling issues as Ethereum continues its development objectives. The browser itself is not reliant on the blockchain and is therefore not impacted by such related concerns.

3.1 Regulation — Securities Law, Compliance Obligations.

Based off of my research of Coinbase’s securities law framework, the BAT token is not a security token and listing this token on GDAX will not require any additional AML/KYC requirements.

3.2 Integrity & Reputational Risk — User Agreement.

There is no reputational risk for listing BAT as the team and project are in good standing. Also, according to the Coinbase user agreement, the BAT token and Brave browser do not fall under the “prohibited business” category.

4.1 Liquidity Standards — Global Market Capitalization, Asset Velocity, Circulation.

The BAT market capitalization, at time of writing, is roughly USD 600 million. BAT can be converted into a multitude of different cryptos but mainly ETH and BTC. The majority of tokens are in the circulting supply (1 billion), compared with the total supply (1.5 billion). The total amount of tokens is capped at 1.5 billion BAT.

4.2 Global Distribution — Total # of Exchanges, Geographic Distribution, Fiat and Crypto Pairs, Exchange Volume Distribution.

BAT is currently traded on 10+ exchanges located throughout the world, giving it a wide geographic distribution. The trading volume across these exchanges is relatively distributed and not a single exchange controls a majority of the volume. The only downside is that there are very few fiat-crypto trading pairs currently available for BAT.

5.1 Demand — Customer Demand, Developers and Contributors, Community Activity, External Stakeholders.

There is widespread customer demand for the BAT, as evidenced by the 24-hour trading volume exceeding USD 19 million. Developer activity is mainly limited to the current Brave browser team, but there is a large and growing community that support and use the browser itself. This fact is illustrated by the 14,000+ reddit subscribers, 64,000+ twitter followers and over 2,000 followers on Medium. There are a few, prominent, external stakeholders that have invested in the Brave browser project. The most notable investors are Founders Fund, Digital Currency Group, and Pantera Capital.

5.2 Network Standards — Change in Market Capitalization, Nodes, Transactions, Fees & Addresses.

The BAT market cap has grown tremendously from its May 2017 token sale. In total the token sale raised $35 million USD and the market cap, at time of writing, is roughly $600 million USD. While the number of address holding BAT is relatively concentrated at the top, this concentration has been diminishing steadily overtime.

6.1 Economic Incentives — Type of Token, Token Utility, Inflation Money Supply, Rewards and Penalties.

The BAT token is not a security because it can only be used within the Brave browser as a unit of account, thus making it a likely utility token. There is a limited total supply of 1.5 billion BAT that will ever be created. Brave will occasionally award Brave browser users with BAT tokens to incentivise specific behavior.

6.2 Token Sale Structure — Security, Participation Equality, Team Ownership, Transparency, Total Supply, Ethics or Code of Conduct.

The security aspects of the token sale went smoothly with no major incidents reported. Participation equality was very poor because the sale completed in only 30 seconds, with most tokens being sold to large investors. The team was transparent about the proportion of tokens being sold and retained by the team. Overall, the Brave team conducted the token sale in a professional and ethical manner.

Conclusion

You may have noticed that all four of the above mentioned tokens are Ethereum-based projects. Is this because Brian Armstrong is an Ethereum maximalist? No. It is because these projects have extremely solid fundamentals and also happen to run on the Ethereum network. If these projects were built upon independent blockchains, they would satisfy the same listing criteria.

Bonus: Dark Horse Candidate

Stellar Lumens — XLM

Stellar’s native token, XLM, fulfils a multitude of categories from the GDAX Digital Asset Framework. However, the Stellar organization currently holds 103.6 billion XLM, compared with a circulating supply of only 17.8 billion XLM. This degree of XLM control by the organization is currently too large to meet listing criteria. In the future, as more XLM are added into the circulating supply, I believe we will see XLM being added to GDAX.

So there you have it. These are the tokens that I believe are likely candidates for GDAX to list in 2018. Please direct all hate to my twitter and all constructive criticism to the comments below. Thanks for reading!