Take Binance as an example. The world’s largest crypto exchange, according to volume, added SushiSwap (SUSHI) quite early last year, and it was first praised for being inclusive of the emerging DeFi sector, only to be criticized for jumping the gun when people thought that the project is a scam.
Coinbase waited and did its checks, biding its time to see how things would play out before it listed the same token. It remained to see whether or not it would be blacklisted by the authorities, what would happen to the token, and whether or not investors would want it in the first place.
However, I see the safe approach as a double-edged sword. You do get to play it safe, but you might also miss out on a big opportunity. Even so, Coinbase opted to play it safe, and it listed the coin — as well as several others, including SKALE (SKL) and Polygon (MATIC) only about a month ago, making it available to 43 million retail investors that frequent its platform.
This, of course, opens a new way for US users to reach these tokens, but also other investors in countries and regions that Coinbase Pro serves. The only exception is New York State, where users still don’t have access to SUSHI to this day due to the strictness of the local laws.
I think that this was the right move for Coinbase Pro, as it is never a bad thing to increase its offering, provided that you are sure that the tokens you offer are legitimate. Which Coinbase likely did way before it added support for them. Of course, they are still as volatile as any cryptocurrency — there is no helping that, and even Bitcoin, the coin with all but guaranteed future, is a massive risk.
One more thing to note is that Coinbase Ventures actually owns MATIC tokens due to its investment in Polygon in 2019 when the project was still known under the name of Matic Network.
Do you plan to use Coinbase Pro to buy these coins?