Coinbase Inc., which owns one of the largest U.S. cryptocurrency trading platforms, is opening the door to offering digital tokens based on the Ethereum network.
The San Francisco-based company said it will support Ethereum’s ERC20 technical standard on its platform in the coming months, according to a blog post the firm published Monday. ERC20 is the technical standard used to build Ethereum-based tokens, such as EOS, Qtum, OmiseGo and Bancor. There are more than 50,000 ERC20 token contracts, according to Etherscan website.
“This paves the way for supporting ERC20 assets across Coinbase products in the future, though we aren’t announcing support for any specific assets or features at this time,” the post said. Coinbase trades Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether and Litecoin on its GDAX exchange.
The move comes less than three weeks after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said platforms serving as venues for digital assets that are securities will need to register with the agency as a national exchange, or qualify for an exemption. Coinbase says it’s exempt from SEC registration requirements as they do not list assets that could be considered securities.