In Detail
Coinbase’s goal is to provide a fair and efficient marketplace. As mentioned during our launch of Asset Hub, our goal is to list every compliant asset possible. In our ideal world, Coinbase would simply list every asset that met the requisite legal and cybersecurity standards, while giving our customers as much information as possible to make educated investment decisions. Being listed on our exchange would not be considered an endorsement; it would simply be an indication that the asset had met our listing standards.
The issue is that because an asset listing can be time consuming both from a technical and legal perspective, it is still scarce; because it is scarce, it is considered valuable; because it is valuable, it is considered by some to be an endorsement. This is similar to the dynamic that ensued around Twitter verification, where what was initially simply an anti-impersonation measure inadvertently became a status symbol.
As part of our commitment to transparency, we want to shed further light on how our current listing process works, as well as sharing additional information on the steps we take to ensure that our listing and ventures teams are kept completely independent, and, finally, offer some insight into how we think about the crypto assets we share on our corporate balance sheet.
First, as we’ve discussed before, here’s how we operate.