GDAX/Coinbase Plans to Add New Coins in 2018

Will Coin Base Add New Coins? Coinbase Plans to Add New Coins, But That Doesn’t Mean Every Rumor is True

Coinbase had said they plan to add new coins in 2018. This was confirmed by Coinbase’s CEO on CNBC. However, they didn’t announce which coins will be added, or if any coin will be added for sure.^[1]

In other words they said “they plan to add new coins in 2018,” but didn’t say they will for sure add new coins (subtle difference, but that is the official story).

Thus, the “rumor” going around that Coinbase plans to add new coins is essentially true!

The idea that Coinbase would add new coins in 2018 was first announced by Brian Armstrong (Coinbase’s CEO) on CNBC back in November (see the following video). Then later, it was confirmed in December when Asiff Hirji (Coinbase’s president) reiterated the intention to add more coins (see the link in the citations).^[2]

However, despite this and other such teasers, Coinbase has also specifically stated that they have not decided to list any coin for sure yet (they had to make this clear after the rumor that XRP would be added went viral).

The bottom line then is this: The chances of Coinbase/GDAX adding new coins is very likely, the teaser has been put out there twice on CNBC (and in a blog post on forks and in a blog post about ERC20 tokens), but they still haven’t officially announced any coins to be listed or confirmed that any coin will be added for sure.

UPDATE: Bitcoin Cash was listed on Coinbase/GDAX in 2018. It is unknown if other coins will be listed in 2018. There is always the chance that Bitcoin Cash was the coin they were referring to… although subsequent blog posts have hinted that there is still more to come.

UPDATE 2: Despite the above, Coinbase made a clearer statement on January 4th, in part due to a rumor starting about Ripple being listed on Coinbase “for sure.” The January 4th statement states, “As of the date of this statement, we have made no decision to add additional assets to either GDAX or Coinbase. Any statement to the contrary is untrue and not authorized by the company.” So, was the plan to add new coins noted in November and December a reference to Bitcoin Cash? Or, were they teasing a more general idea even though they have not officially committed to adding a specific new coin? It is hard to say. The CNBC teasers seemed pretty straightforward, but one couldn’t dismiss the subsequent official statement. See Coinbase’s Our process for adding new assets and Announcing the GDAX Digital Asset Framework.

UPDATE 3 March 2018: Coinbase Plans to add support for ERC20 tokens. This hints strongly that the initial tease on CNBC was true and that although they have no certain plans of adding coins, new coins are likely to be added in 2018.

NOTE: A coin going on Coinbase implies that it will go on GDAX as well and vice versa (since GDAX is a Coinbase owned and operated a trading platform for cryptocurrencies that uses Coinbase logins). Likewise, every policy, including the framework above, applies to both platforms.

This truism stated on CNBC as “new coins would be added in 2018,” somehow has snowballed into rumors that Ripple, Monero, Dash, and Bitcoin Cash will be added for sure so you should buy them ASAP. That is the part of the story that you need to be skeptical about.

Some people point to the fact that if you type “site:coinbase.com xrp” into Google, you can see a cached page that touts Ripple on Coinbase as proof. Others claim that they have found some other sort of proof.

The problem is, it is easy enough to fake evidence. Thus, buying based on rumor and not an official word is risky, to say the least.

Acting on rumors like that in the crypto space is gambling.

First, those who spread the rumor (true or not) have probably already started buying coins in anticipation. Second, Coinbase could end up adding any, all, or none of these in practice or add them so far into 2018 that buying now hardly makes any sense.

The crypto market can change wildly over time. Coins can go up 100% and down 50% in a week. Thus, buying now on the rumor for a long-term hold could end up not being the best move.

If you want to buy some top coins in anticipation of them being added to Coinbase, consider averaging in over time with small buys and building an average position (a basic conservative investing strategy).

If things go well you still do well, if they don’t, you have protected yourself a bit.

There could be many dips along the way before these coins are added to Coinbase/GDAX, and these coins could not be added at all.

Your strategy must account for the unknowns if you want to play it safe. Meanwhile, once they are added, we can’t be fully sure what reaction the market will have and one must account for that too.

If you believe in crypto, it makes sense to average into the top coins by market cap over time. Likewise, it can be a sound strategy to buy the rumor and set tight stops to try to make some quick gains. If you bought on the rumor earlier this week, you did well.

However, you can go very wrong if you go all-in on an internet rumor and it ends up not playing out the way the meme said it would.

You could end up holding some heavy bags if you buy the rumor and then end up waiting months for the event (which may or may not happen the way you think). Meanwhile, buying the average price over time should go a long way towards offsetting this.

Think about the content of the rumors.

1. Coinbase is planning to add coins.
2. No one knows for sure what coins will be added even though top altcoins are logical.
3. Even if some top altcoins are added, there is no way to know what the final selection will be for sure.
4. There is no way to know when the coins will be tradable on Coinbase/GDAX; if it is far enough out, buying now could end up being a worse bet than waiting.

UPDATE: Ripple increased from .25 cents to a high of over $3 after the rumor about Ripple being on Coinbase spread. Was this the only thing that led to the rise of Ripple? Not at all! Is the current valuation justified? One could make arguments either way. That is the point. The point is, the Ripple run up over this rumor shows us how common it is to “buy the rumor” in the crypto space and how willing fans of a certain coin are to spread rumors they know could be false. This is important to note because it is an ongoing trend. Even when a rumor is true, as it was with Bitcoin Cash and Coinbase, the rumor doesn’t always help the coin in the long run. Learn more about the Bitcoin Cash going on Coinbase story for a cautionary tale.

NOTE: We can’t tell you what investments to make. You’ll need to do your own research and make your own choices. If you believe in crypto, there is only so wrong you can go buying a spread of top coins over time and holding. Just remember to set stops if you are looking for short-term gains and remember that sometimes things get ugly if you are holding for the long-term.

TIP: Coinbase will release Bitcoin Cash to users who held Bitcoin during the fork in early 2018. They confirmed this plan on their blog. We don’t know if they will allow Bitcoin Cash to be traded on Coinbase/GDAX though. We only know they will make it available. For more on that topic, see the creator of Litecoin and former Coinbase employee Charlie Lee’s thoughts on Bitcoin Cash and Coinbase on Twitter.

1. GDAX/Coinbase to Add New Coins Soon, Sets Rules for Future Inclusion. Bitsonline.com
2. Coinbase’s president reveals what’s next in the cryptocurrency craze