- Coinbase received flak from crypto enthusiasts for deciding to list low-capital crypto while ignoring good projects.
- Some social media users suspect insider trading by Coinbase employees making a huge profit from the announcement.
On Tuesday, April 12, crypto exchange Coinbase announced its roadmap for the quarter of April-June. Besides, it also shared a list of crypto tokens that the exchange is looking to list in this quarter. The roadmap includes listing 45 ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum network and 5 SPL tokens on the Solana network.
However, the exchange has received strong criticism from crypto market proponents who argued that Coinbase’s listing plans include several low-capital and meme coins. Several social media users questioned why Coinbase choose to ignore some emerging and popular projects such as Fantom (FTM) and Ripple (XRP).
Note that Ripple’s XRP was previously trading on Coinbase. However, the exchange removed it following the SEC lawsuit in December 2020. Thus, unless regulatory emerges on XRP, chances are Coinbase might refrain from relisting.
However, many dismissed several of these planned listings as “Shitcoins”. They also likened this announcement to a late April fool’s joke. The chatter across social media has spread like a wildfire.
Interestingly, the exchange is also facing accusations of insider trading to profit from a price rally of its token listing.
Coinbase facing accusations of insider trading
Cobie, host of the popular crypto podcast UpOnlyTV said that they found an ETF address that pre-bought several hundred tokens “exclusively featured in the Coinbase Asset Listing post about 24 hours before it was published”. This includes the purchase of tokens such as DappRadar (RADAR), Kromatika (KROM), DFX token (DFX), and RAC.
Furthermore, data shows that many of the tokens mentioned by Coinbase witnessed a large spike between 10-and 30 percent after the announcement. Commenting on Cobie’s post, another Twitter user zachxbt stated that they had found a related address tailgated to a token in the Coinbase list. Both of these addresses have used centralized exchanges such as Binance and Bittrex.
Found a related address that also bought $XYO, $FOX, & $RGT before their Coinbase listing announcements as well.https://t.co/Rlc9DnklvL https://t.co/UhLaSs1C4O
— zachxbt (@zachxbt) April 12, 2022
Another crypto market analyst @AlanStacked notes that a Coinbase insider made a purchase two hours ahead of the announcement for $10,000. The same invested value has now shot up past $600K.
Several social media users expressed their anger at this incident. They even criticized the U.S. regulators for focusing on regulating the wrong aspects of crypto. Users have mentioned several instances of insider trading taking place at exchanges. Furthermore, popular crypto market analyst Wu Blockchain has written a detailed blog post last month highlighting this matter.
Coinbase to make film-triology on Bored Ape NFTs
Earlier this week on Monday, crypto exchange Coinbase announced that it will be making a film trilogy with the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. As part of this trilogy, Coinbase Entertainment will be featuring the BAYC NFT characters. But users have called this announcement ironic, saying that it comes even before Coinbase launched its own NFT marketplace.
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