Coinbase Announces Plans for ERC20 Support

Coinbase has announced its intention to support the Ethereum ERC20 technical standard — meaning more cryptocurrencies will likely be added to the popular exchange in the coming months.

Another Leap Forward

In a post on the company’s official blog, Coinbase has announced its plans to support the Ethereum ERC20 technical standard.

ERC20 — which stands for Ethereum Request for Comment 20 — is the Ethereum token standard and is a technical standard used for smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. As noted by Coinbase:

ERC20 assets have become a popular way for teams to quickly build interoperable contracts/assets.

The update, which will roll out in the coming months, will allow for the support of ERC20 assets across Coinbase products.

We’re excited to announce our intention to support the Ethereum ERC20 technical standard for Coinbase in the coming months.

We are not announcing support for any specific assets today.https://t.co/glAjG42tZD pic.twitter.com/S1tPXJcTGH

— Coinbase (@coinbase) March 26, 2018

However, the popular cryptocurrency exchange has not announced support for any specific assets or features. Notes Coinbase:

We are announcing this both internally and to the public as consistent with our process for adding new assets.

This significant announcement comes roughly one month after the popular exchange rolled out support for SegWit transactions on the Bitcoin network – which has significantly reduced bitcoin transaction fees on the platform.

What to Expect

The announcement from Coinbase has implications for the company’s entire family of products.

In regards to GDAX  — Coinbase’s sister exchange — the company has noted that “the GDAX team will wait for additional regulatory clarity before [deciding] which ERC20 assets to support on GDAX.” However, ERC20 support will afford GDAX the ability to securely recover customer ERC20 assets accidentally sent to the exchange’s Ethereum addresses.

Though Coinbase will soon support ERC20 assets, the exchange will continue to follow company policy and only list additional assets after they are listed on GDAX. Said assets may only gain admission to the popular exchange after undergoing strict evaluations in regards to their “liquidity, price stability, and other market health metrics.”

However, the company notes that admission to the GDAX platform does not automatically mean an ERC20 token will be listed on Coinbase and that GDAX “will likely have more assets listed on the platform than the Coinbase platform.”

As is also the case with GDAX, ERC20 support on Coinbase also allows for the safe recovery of ERC20 assets accidentally sent to Coinbase Ethereum addresses.

Meanwhile, the Coinbase Custody team is considering various assets to support for deposits and withdrawals, and Coinbase Asset Management  will add any asset listed on GDAX to the Coinbase Index “on a market capitalization weighted basis.”

Are you excited to learn that Coinbase will soon support the Ethereum ERC20 technical standard? Which altcoins do you expect will be added to the exchange next? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of AdobeStock, GDAX, Glassdoor