Dogecoin: Coinbase trading platform says it will add support for cryptocurrency in coming weeks

Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase says it will add support for dogecoin in the coming weeks.

Dogecoin has become perhaps the most discussed – and certainly fastest growing – of cryptocurrencies in recent times. It had gained more than 10,000 per cent over the course of 2021, before it experienced a crash after Elon Musk hosted Saturday Night Live.

Mr Musk has been the cryptocurrency’s most famous promoter, referring to himself as “the dogefather” and committing to use it to fund a SpaceX mission to the Moon known as Doge-1. But he has also recently voiced concern about it, calling it a “hustle” on SNL and urging people to use caution when they invest.

But even as both its prominence and price have shot up, dogecoin has remained practically difficult to buy. Many major exchanges have not supported it, even as they add other “altcoins”, or bitcoin competitors.

Now, major cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase said that it will be adding support for dogecoin in the coming weeks. The announcement came in response to the first question asked during the investor call that followed its debut results after it listed on the stock market earlier this year.

Chief executive Brian Armstrong said that the company is keen on adding more assets, and that dogecoin would be one of those in the next “six to eight weeks”.

“Asset addition is something that’s near and dear to my heart,” he said. “There’s more and more assets being created in the crypto economy.

“I think it’s going to be something, kind of, like apps in the App Store or on the iPhone where there’s eventually millions of these assets created over time and so we’re putting a lot of work and thought into how do we accelerate our pace of asset addition, and one of those is Doge, as you mentioned, which has been getting a lot of attention recently.

“So, to answer your question directly, we plan to list Doge in the next six to eight weeks. And then more broadly, we’re going to be focused on how we can accelerate asset addition in the future.”

Later, Mr Armstrong said that the choice to add new assets to the platform would be made using a variety of different criteria, and said again that there’s “going to millions of different crypto assets out there”.

Coinbase would choose which to add by looking at cyber security concerns, as well as issues about regulatory and compliance, he said.

But he also said that Coinbase would look to “accelerate” that process, to avoid the danger that it would “not be able to keep up” with the vast amount of new assets being rolled out.