Mathew Di Salvo
·2 min read
Coinbase today delisted a number of big cryptocurrencies—including Ripple’s XRP, the seventh largest digital asset by market cap—from its wallet app.
In a Tuesday announcement, America’s biggest exchange said that from January 23 it would no longer support Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ripple (XRP), or Stellar (XLM) on Coinbase Wallet.
Coinbase said the move was “due to low usage” of the assets on the platform. Coinbase Wallet is a self-custody mobile app, similar to other software wallets such as MetaMask, though with a wider array of support for crypto assets.
Today’s announcement from Coinbase means that from next year, users will not be able to buy, sell, send or receive the assets via this app.
Users will still be able to access the coins and tokens via its exchange, though.
Coinbase added that despite it removing the assets from its wallet product, users would be able to recover them via their recovery phases.
BCH, the 29th biggest digital asset, is a Bitcoin spin-off that came about after a hard fork (when a network’s contributors want to take a blockchain a separate way from others working on it.)
Its selling point, its community says, is that it can be used for quicker and faster payments than the original—and biggest cryptocurrency—Bitcoin.
ETC is another spin-off: it is the cryptocurrency behind Ethereum Classic blockchain which allows people to build upon its network. It is the 25th biggest digital asset by market cap.
XRP is the token behind the XRP Ledger, originally called Ripple, the same name as the crypto payments company founded by XRP’s creators. The XRP Ledger is a blockchain launched to help banks and other financial institutions move money fast and without fees. XRP’s market cap currently stands at $19.6 billion.
XLP, like XRP, is a token that is used on the Stellar blockchain and payment network, and is itself a spinoff of sorts. Stellar, developed by a Ripple co-founder, was created to help move money across borders economically. XLP’s market cap currently stands at $2.2 billion.
