It seems as if Coinbase, the world’s largest Bitcoin wallet and trading platform, is not ready to integrate Ethereum Classic just yet.
Earlier this week, various analysts and Ethereum Classic enthusiasts suggested the possibility of Coinbase integrating Ethereum Classic in the near future after a community member discovered an API link to Ethereum Classic on the Coinbase platform. These included Barry Silbert, the founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, a Bitcoin and Blockchain-focused investment firm that has invested in some of the most successful startups in the Bitcoin industry.
However, almost immediately after Silbert shared the API link of Ethereum Classic on the Coinbase platform in online communities and social media, the Coinbase development team clarified that the API link is simply a relic from the previous Ethereum Classic payout. Coinbase said:
“We have no plans to support ETC at this stage. This API call is a relic of the ETC withdrawals.”
Why did Coinbase have an API link to Ethereum Classic?
On July 20, the Ethereum Foundation and the Ethereum development team executed a hard fork in order to recover funds lost in the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), one of the first smart contract and Ethereum-based decentralized applications to raise funds in an initial coin offering (ICO).
At the time, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote:
“The recovery contract is already returning DAO token holders’ Ether; about 4.5 mln ETH has been sent to DAO token holders, and about 463,000 ETH is in the control of the curator; a contract to facilitate extra balance payments is currently undergoing security review. We thank our developers and the community for working together to make the transition as smooth as it has been, and look forward to working together to continue to make the Ethereum ecosystem and protocol a success.”
Some investors, businesses and users of the Ethereum network did not agree with the approach of the Ethereum Foundation and development community in regard to the bailout of investors from the DAO, as the loss of funds from the DAO resulted due to certain vulnerabilities of the DAO software. Hence, the development team of the DAO and its investors should have been held responsible for the loss.
Barry Silbert along with other experts supported the newly created or forked Ethereum Classic, a new Blockchain project that aimed to continue the core principles of the original Ethereum project. At the moment, Chinese sources state that the majority of the Chinese cryptocurrency community considers Ethereum Classic as the original Ethereum Blockchain network.
So, will Coinbase support Ethereum Classic?
After the launch of the Ethereum Classic Investment Trust, an investment vehicle that allowed investors in the public market to invest in Ethereum Classic, the cryptocurrency has continued its upward momentum.
Ethereum Classic remains the sixth largest cryptocurrency in the market, with a $1.5 bln market cap. Although Coinbase representatives stated that they cannot provide any more information in regard to the cryptocurrencies the platform intends to support, analysts and experts have been encouraging Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, to consider integrating Ethereum Classic.