This time around, the coin being added is EOS, currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. This time, however, the asset is being offered to Coinbase’s retail customers. EOS has been available to its clients on Coinbase Pro for nearly two months.
In addition, the coin is also available to customers in most of Coinbase’s served regions minus the United Kingdom and the state of New York. The Big Apple has proven difficult for Coinbase to tackle fully thanks to its ongoing anti-crypto attitude and limits on innovation through the BitLicense. The company released a statement saying that it would be adding more “jurisdictions at a later date.”
EOS is a cryptocurrency designed to support large-scale decentralized applications. There are no fees to send or receive EOS. Instead, the protocol requires EOS to use resources like RAM, CPU and network bandwidth. It also rewards the entities that run the network periodically with new EOS, effectively substituting inflation for transaction fees.
Coinbase is one the largest, most influential and most popular cryptocurrency trading exchanges in the United States. Last September, the company announced it was looking into adding more cryptocurrencies to its network quicker. Three months later, it issued a report showing which currencies it was planning to add, one of which was EOS. It’s good to see Coinbase keeping its promises to customers.
EOS’ price has gone up in the past several days, though over the past 24 hours, it has taken a bit of a stumble and is now down by more than five percent. At the same time, this trend appears to be affecting most cryptocurrencies, however, with entities like bitcoin down to about $8,300 after trading for $8,700 during the past 72 hours.
The report that Coinbase released in December was read months before any of the proposed coins were added. Though this is pure speculation at press time, it’s wondered if perhaps the company did so to avoid allegations of insider trading, like those it faced when it first added bitcoin cash.