The price of Ethereum Classic (ETC) surged around 20% on Tuesday after Binance said it was adding two ETC trading pairs and Coinbase announced its intention to list ETC. This was probably the first time that both of these crypto exchanges had announced listing plans regarding the same cryptocurrency on the same day. In fact, the announcements arrived within one hour of each other!

Here is a screenshot courtesy of crypto research site CryptoCompare:

cryptocompare chart.png

First, let’s talk about Binance. It announced that it would “open trading for ETC/BNB and ETC/USDT trading pairs at 2018/06/12 2:30 AM (UTC).” Support for Ethereum Classic was first added on 12 October 2017 when Binance announced that it was introducing ETC/BTC and ETC/ETH trading pairs to its platform.

Now, let’s look at the much bigger news from Coinbase. Its announcement, which arrived one hour before that of Binance, says that it plans to add support for ETC over the coming months. This announcement, which goes to Coinbase’s internal teams and to the public at the same time, forms step 3 of Coinbase’s 7-step process for adding new digital assets. The seven steps are as follows:

  1. An internal asset selection committee uses Coinbase’s evaluation criteria (known as GDAX Digital Asset Framework) to make an initial recommendation.
  2. Assuming the asset passes the legal/risk review, it is passed to the executive time for approval.
  3. If the executive team approves the asset, the decision to add support is communicated simultaneously to the internal teams and to the public.
  4. The engineering team starts work on the necessary technical integration.
  5. The start of the final testing of the technical integration is announced.
  6. The completion of the work on the technical integration is announced.
  7. The internal asset selection committee makes the final yes/no decision on adding the asset to the platform.

According to the post on The Coinbase’s Blog, Coinbase expects to reach step 5 within “the next few months.” Coinbase explains that “adding support” means that the following products will need to be updated: Coinbase Custody; Coinbase Markets; Coinbase Pro; Coinbase Prime; Coinbase Asset management; Coinbase (this is the version of the platform for the mainsteam user).

 

Featured Image Credit: Public Domain Photo by User “Ethereum Classic” on Flickr