Coinbase Gears Up for Biggest-Ever Expansion of Crypto Asset Listings

Coinbase has revamped its policy for listing new cryptocurrencies, replacing an ad hoc process with one the startup hopes will rapidly expand the range of assets traded on its exchange.

That's because listings will be added on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis, rather than supporting all assets globally as Coinbase has done up until now.

"We're now actively reaching out to asset developers with this," Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan told CoinDesk.

"Satoshi and Vitalik [Buterin] were not Coinbase customers. But all future and current asset creators and developers are. So it's like we're becoming a two-sided marketplace."

In the meantime, Srinivasan confirmed Coinbase is still evaluating cryptocurrencies such as ada, lumens, and zcash, which may be rolled out globally or selectively depending on specific regulatory requirements.

Aside from regulatory and technical considerations, the main listing criterion for Coinbase is market demand.

Coinbase may be breaking ground here, as jurisdiction-by jurisdiction asset listings appear to be a rare practice among crypto exchanges.

Will moving from California to New York mean a customer loses access to assets she purchased on Coinbase? Also, if Coinbase does block VPNs, that could be a turn-off for privacy-conscious users, or, say, Americans traveling to countries like China or Iran with restricted internet service, where "Tunneling" is the only way to access regularly visited sites.

Accusations related to such alleged conflicts of interest plagued the company in the past when it came to assets such as bitcoin cash and litecoin, the latter of which was created by former Coinbase employee Charlie Lee.

Finally, it remains to be seen how the crypto community will react to the idea of Coinbase charging teams a fee for listing, given that high fees at some exchanges have sparked controversy in the past and charges of "Pay to play" practices.