Coinbase has officially added Filecoin (FIL) token to the supported assets on the exchange’s professional trading platform, Coinbase Pro, with the company’s Android and iOS apps to follow later.
It is the latest move in a series of rapid expansion plays that the popular US cryptocurrency exchange has made as of late in an attempt to further widen its offering and legitimize a variety of new digital assets.
Filecoin, developed by Protocol Labs, is a cryptocurrency-powered storage network. The community-driven, decentralized, blockchain-based marketplace is meant to enable users to buy and sell unused storage on the network using its native coin FIL.
The project has been under development for three years and is best described as the blockchain version of Dropbox or Google Drive. Miners earn Filecoin by providing open hard-drive space to the network, while users spend Filecoin to rent space and store their files encrypted in the decentralized network.
In 2017, amid the peak of ICO and cryptocurrency hype, the distributed file sharing protocol raised nearly $180 million in a few minutes.
Coinbase Was Evaluating FIL Addition among Other Tokens
Filecoin was among 18 tokens that Coinbase announced it considered offering last year. However, at the time the exchange did not give a timeline for listing these assets as the process required significant technical and compliance review in addition to regulatory approval.
In a blog post, officials revealed the launch would take place in four vital stages including transfer-only, post-only, limit-only, and the final stage full-trading mode. Coinbase will post tweets announcing the stages separately.
Coinbase will begin accepting inbound transfers of FIL today and will open trading on Wednesday, December 9, if liquidity conditions are met. The exchange points out that the new coin will be accessible for users in most jurisdictions.
As usual, when the listing of a new coin on a major exchange is announced, there is a notable increase in the trading volume.
At the time of writing, FIL was enjoying a 24-hour surge of 6 percent. The coin was trading at $30.71 with a total market cap of $1.36 billion and a 24-hour market volume of $216 million.
