An attempt to improve the transparency of the asset listing process at Coinbase has instead inadvertently raised further questions about insider trading.
In an April 11 blog published by Coinbase, the exchange announced 50 altcoins that it’s currently considering for listing between April 1-June 30. For Coinbase the goal of its endeavor is to, “increase transparency by providing as much information symmetry as possible.”
If it had been hoped that this increased transparency would increase investor confidence in the fairness of the asset listing system, it wasn’t long until such notions were disabused.
Shortly after the publication of the Coinbase article crypto influencer Cobie announced the discovery of a wallet with hundreds of thousands of dollars of named assets. Tellingly, the assets in the wallet had been purchased just 24 hours before the Coinbase article went live.
“Found an ETH address that bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of tokens exclusively featured in the Coinbase Asset Listing post about 24 hours before it was published, rofl,” wrote Cobie on his Twitter on April 12.
Specifically, the account had purchased tokens totaling next to $400,000 including Indexed (NDX), Kromatika (KROM), DappRadar (RADAR), RAC (RAC), DFX Token (DFX), and Paper (PAPER).
The value of the tokens has increased modestly since the announcement.
Oops, it happened again
Coinbase may never have previously released the names of tokens it is currently considering for listing, but it is not the first time that someone with insider knowledge at the company has been accused of frontrunning the market.
In February a similar incident occurred before the listing of Pawtocol (UPI) and Aventus (AVT). A new wallet was created and a seven-figure sum of tokens was placed into it before the listing announcement was made.
Tokens Coinbase is currently considering listing
- Aleph.im (ALEPH) — Contract Address:…
