Coinbase's Listing Process: Why It's Adding Many More Coins and How It Decides - Ep.96

Coinbase has departed from its conservative roots and begun adding many more coins. Dan Romero, vice president of Coinbase, explains how its listing process works, how it tries to prevent insider trading, and why it's listed coins that had ICOs, even though the SEC has indicated all coins that were offered in ICOs at least started off as securities. He also talks about Coinbase's international expansion, how regulations around crypto differ in Japan vs. the U.S., and the importance of banking relationships for crypto companies. Plus, we dive into how Coinbase plans to weather competition on multiple fronts -- from Robinhood, Square and Binance on its consumer side, and from Fidelity and Bakkt on the institutional side -- how its decentralized projects could affect its current revenues and how it is staffing now for any future hype cycles that could increase crypto adoption by an order of magnitude.
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Episode links:
Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/
Dan: https://twitter.com/dwr
Coinbase Listing: https://listing.coinbase.com
Digital Asset Framework: https://listing.coinbase.com
Coinbase's new listing process: https://blog.coinbase.com/new-asset-listing-process-a83ef296a0f3
Announcement that they were exploring adding Cardano, Basica Attention Token, Stellar Lumens, Zcash and 0x: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-exploring-cardano-basic-attention-token-stellar-zcash-and-0x-9e44f0eb823f
News announced after we recorded: Coinbase considering offering 31 new assets: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-continues-to-explore-support-for-new-digital-assets-92ba4ab7f465
Interview with Will Warren of decentralized exchange 0x: http://unchainedpodcast.co/will-warren-of-0x-on-why-decentralized-exchanges-are-the-future
Coinbase investigates insider trading of Bitcoin Cash: http://fortune.com/2017/12/20/coinbase-bitcoin-insider-trading/
Coinbase finds no insider trading of Bitcoin Cash: http://fortune.com/2018/07/24/coinbase-insider-trading/
Unchained episode on Coinbase/IRS case: http://unchainedpodcast.co/is-the-irs-justified-in-demanding-information-on-millions-of-bitcoin-users
Link to Alistair Milne's tracking of total Coinbase customer base: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NgvD2kFT69mSXuJPzPDu-Qv9SS1ck2iPt6Kw9a55z0k/edit#gid=0
Coinbase adding USDC: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-and-circle-announce-the-launch-of-usdc-a-digital-dollar-2cd6548d237
Unchained episode with Circle: http://unchainedpodcast.co/circles-jeremy-allaire-and-sean-neville-on-why-crypto-will-be-bigger-than-the-web-ep71
Unchained episode with Rune Christensen of MakerDAO: http://unchainedpodcast.co/why-its-so-hard-to-keep-stablecoins-stable
Unconfirmed episode with Rune: http://unconfirmed.libsyn.com/rune-christensen-of-makerdao-on-its-15-million-from-andreessen-horowitz-ep039