Coinbase president hints at new coin listings

Coinbase president, Asiff Hirji, recently appeared in an interview with CNBC and hinted at some exciting new developments for the cryptocurrency exchange.
In a recent interview on CNBC, Asiff Hirji, president of the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange, dropped some hints as to what’s to come for the popular exchange. In addition, Hiriji provided some of his insight as to the current happenings in the cryptocurrency industry.

While Hirji did not give away too many specifics, certain comments on current crypto investment trends suggested several exciting new developments for Coinbase. Hirji talked about the kind of investors that are creating new accounts, as well as the possibility of new cryptocurrencies that will be added to the exchange. Hirji also briefly addressed the question of whether the exchange could possibly go public in the future.

Hirji commenced his interview by noting that 2017’s trading volume has increased 30-fold, as compared to 2016. The president added that tens and thousands of new accounts under management are created every single day.

When asked about the profile of the average Coinbase account holder, Hirji replied that Coinbase account holders are exactly those that you’d expect to have accounts at brokerages and have an interest in cryptocurrency. Hirji added that mainstream investors have readily been adding cryptocurrency holdings to their investment portfolio, especially since the industry has become more mature in the last year.

However, the interview also asked two important question to the Coinbase president. Firstly, the interviewer asked Hirji what the future held for Coinbase and whether Coinbase would start supporting other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin Cash. While Hirji did not reveal any specifics regarding future plans, he did confirm that Coinbase extended roadmaps to several coin development teams to illuminate the exchange’s joining process. The roadmap included information such as the criteria that a cryptocurrency must comply with before being listed with Coinbase. Hirji confirmed that they have made their joining framework available and that users have increasingly been demanding a wider variety of coin listings.

After discussing other points, the attention turned to the recent emergence of bitcoin futures contracts on the market and how this will affect the industry. The interview then focused on whether Coinbase would consider becoming public as an IPO. This possibility was neither confirmed nor rejected by the Coinbase president. Hirji maintained that going public would be in the interest of their investors, and as such, it seems like an obvious path to take. However, Hirji cautioned that any plans are still very premature. Coinbase would have to go through a lot before going public.