On Wednesday (May 1), Coinbase announced that “Coinbase Wallet”, its user-controlled (i.e. non-custodial) wallet app for iOS and Android, is being updated to include Dogecoin (DOGE) support.

Here is how Coinbase explains the differences between Coinbase.com and Coinbase Wallet:

Coinbase.com a.k.a Coinbase Consumer is a digital currency brokerage – you use it to buy or sell cryptocurrency in exchange for fiat currency (i.e. USD or your local currency). Coinbase Consumer can also act as a custodian, storing your digital currency for you after you purchase it. Coinbase Consumer is available in 32 countries.

Wallet is a user-custodied digital currency wallet and DApp browser. This means that with Wallet, the private keys (that represent ownership of the cryptocurrency) are stored directly on your device and not with a centralized exchange like Coinbase Consumer. You do not need a Coinbase Consumer account to use Wallet and you can download Wallet from anywhere in the world.”

And here are some reasons why you want to use Coinbase Wallet:

“Coinbase Wallet is a software product that gives you access to a wide spectrum of decentralized innovation – buy and store ERC-20 tokens, participate in airdrops and ICOs, collect rare digital art and other collectibles, browse decentralized apps (DApps), shop at stores that accept cryptocurrency, and send crypto to anyone around the world.”

Coinbase Wallet is a mobile app that initially only supported Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum tokens (ERC20 and ERC721). On 26 November 2018, support for Ethereum Classic (ETC) was added. On February 5, support was Bitcoin (BTC) was announced. Around two weeks later, Coinbase added support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Then on February 22, it introduced support for storing, sending, and receiving Litecoin (LTC). XRP support was added on March 14, and Stellar Lumen (XLM) support arrived on Apri 1.

Yesterday, exactly one month after XLM support was added, Coinbase Wallet Product Lead Siddharth Coelho-Prabhu announced via a blog post that the “new Wallet update with DOGE support will roll out to all users on iOS and Android over the next week.” This means that “you can now store your Dogecoin (DOGE) directly in the Coinbase Wallet app.”

Here is Siddharth explaining how to activate the DOGE wallet within the Coinbase Wallet app:

“To find your DOGE wallet, all you need to do is tap ‘Receive’ on the main wallet tab and select DOGE.”

One other thing worth pointing out is that Coinbase Wallet “also supports the DOGE Testnet to aid developers and power users” (you can switch between testnet and mainnet via the Advanced Settings section of the Settings tab).

Coinbase Wallet’s addition of support for DOGE ahead of tokens/coins for higher profile crypto projects has confused many members of the crypto community, with some believing that Coinbase’s decision came as a result of Elon Musk’s endorsement on April 2:

According to CryptoCompare, at press time (06:50 UTC on May 2), DOGE is trading at $0.002532, up 1.28% in the past 24-hour period.

Featured Image Courtesy of Dogecoin Team