On Tuesday, Coinbase announced that XRP will be the latest cryptocurrency to hit its pro-level trading platform. Coinbase Pro will allow users to transfer XRP to the platform right away (“After 10am on February 25”) but there will be at least a 12-hour delay before trading is enabled.
Support for XRP will be available for users in the U.S. (though not those in New York state), the U.K., Canada, Singapore, Australia and the EU. As one of the most controversial cryptocurrencies around, the addition of Ripple’s XRP is sure to stir up the institutional banking coin’s hot-blooded armies of supporters and detractors. The cryptocurrency has faced ongoing criticism for its centralized nature and its perceived lack of use beyond cross-border payments by financial institutions.
“Once sufficient supply of XRP is established on the platform, trading on the XRP/USD, XRP/EUR, and XRP/BTC order books will start in phases, beginning with post-only mode and proceeding to full trading should our metrics for a healthy market be met,” the company said in its announcement.
For now, XRP will be limited to Coinbase Pro, Coinbase’s feature-rich platform previously known as GDAX. The company declined to specify when XRP would hit the regular Coinbase platform, though in the past those additions have often followed Coinbase Pro by a few weeks.
Last year, Coinbase began expanding its previously spartan coin offerings to include a much wider selection of offerings beyond its longtime support for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and a small handful of other offerings derived from those core coins. XRP is the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap, trailing Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Ripple is going after startups to build an ecosystem around the XRP cryptocurrency
