Speculating on what coin is going to be added on Coinbase is almost a separate discipline in the crypto world. A day doesn’t go by without a new rumor or a more or less valid conjecture on which coin is going to be next. What most of these predictors agree on is the subset of coins that are top favorites to be added, that was not too hard to agree on as Coinbase themselves made this shortlist. The predictors differ, however, on the actual ranking – which one is next and which one is after that.
The list of top favorites consists usually of BAT, Cardano, Stellar as the top 3 followed by ZEC as the first privacy-focused coin that could be added on Coinbase. Based on what has happened in the past with BCash, how the market reacts to these announcements and Coinbase’s desire to be completely transparent and legitimate, I don’t think Coinbase would make this announcement unless they were extremely confident one of these coins would be listed. But question is which one is going to be next?
We already discussed BAT chances, which are the highest in our opinion. Let’s have a look what weapon Stellar (XLM) brings to the battle.
Here are couple of reasons why Stellar could be the next listing:
Coinbase has close business ties with Circle – investment app that offers cryptocurrency as a buying option. One of the coins offered in Circle is XLM which prompted XLM holders to see this as the advantage for Stellar to be the next Coinbase listing. The reasoning is solid – if it is already on Circle and Circle works closely with Coinbase, it is very plausible for the XLM coin to be added to the Coinbase exchange.
Based on what Coinbase have put out in their public releases about requirements to be listed on the platform, I’d say Stellar ticks the boxes. For a coin to enter Coinbase, it needs to meet the criteria in the digital asset framework released last year. The quality of the project is part of the criteria along with liquidity, legal compliance, token economy.
And third, a member of the Stellar board is the president of Y Combinator. Y Combinator owns 7% of Coinbase. That member is of course Samuel H. “Sam” Altman.
How much of a bump a Coinbase listing will give is to be seen though. It helped Bitcoin Cash a lot, it bumped ETC and ZRX as well even though we were in the thick of the bear market at the time of listings. We all know Coinbase is the go-to exchange for retail investors due to the on ramps, ease of use, brand recognition so the price bump for XLM would have to be at least of the same level as with other coins.
