Coinbase recently announced that the next coin they will list is Ethereum Classic. This comes as a big surprise to a lot of people. Why not pick Ripple? It has the third largest market cap. There were even rumors of Nano being the next coin to be listed.
There is a lot of speculation as to why Coinbase would make this decision. I looked at multiple articles on the topic and there seems to be some consensus. Ripple is in a gray area of being considered a security. Coinbase has been actively trying to avoid securities due to various legal reasons involving regulation. Therefore, in the light of Ethereum (ETH) being declared not a security along with Bitcoin, the move to ETC makes sense. If ETH is a commodity then it makes sense that ETC would also be ruled a commodity over a security.
Ethereum fork
If you're like me then you weren't a crypto enthusiast until after the Ethereum fork. I simply assumed Ethereum must have forked because part of the community didn't want to convert to proof of stake or something like that... boy was I wrong.
DAO hack
An Ethereum Decentralized Autonomous Organization was formed (based on smart contracts) to fund future dapps on the Ethereum network (much like Block.One and EOS). The smart contract was flawed (Ethereum was solid) and a hacker used a recursive function to siphon Ether from the DAO into a child DAO. This created a ticking clock of one month before the hacker could permanently steal the coins.
ETH hard forked because a hacker basically stole 13% of all coins in existence. The hard fork took the coins away from the hacker. ETC remained because idealists believed that hard forking the entire network because of a single smart contract hack was against the whole spirit of the system of immutability. Most people chose to hard fork so Ethereum got to keep it's name and the majority of the community. The ragtag band of rebels left over formed Ethereum Classic.
Okay, so... why ETC?
Like I said, I've read a lot of articles on this topic of speculation. Why would Coinbase choose ETC? I think the answer is much more simple than any of the opinions I've read on the matter. No one seems to be pointing out the obvious. Do you remember when Coinbase listed Bitcoin Cash as their 4th coin? I logged into my account to find free money sitting there. At the time, I had no idea how forks worked.
When a blockchain forks everyone gets to keep their coins on both platforms. Apparently, I had a tiny bit of Bitcoin ($5) on Coinbase when Bitcoin forked to Bitcoin Cash. I logged into my account to find a free $90 sitting there after Coinbase listed BTC on the exchange.
This is why Coinbase chose Ethereum Classic. They are sitting on a bunch of free money that they want to airdrop back on top of the rightful owners. Anyone who owned Ether on 07/20/2016 8:20:40 AM at block 1920000 basically got exactly that many ETC coins.
Guess how much Ether was worth on July 20, 2016. $12-$13. LOL. Guess how much Ethereum Classic is worth now? $14.55!!! Think about how many people owned Ethereum on July 20, 2016 and had no idea that the fork had even happened.
A lot of those people (like me with Bitcoin) sold their coins and forgot about them. When people log in to Coinbase after ETC is listed a lot of users are going to be happily surprised. Everything they had invested back in 2016 is going to magically appear in their account and they might not even realize why.
Hype
I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it's this kind of hype and non-greedy business practices that could spark the next bull run. Technically, Coinbase doesn't owe it's users the forked coin. Technically, they own those coins, but they are airdropping them back onto the community regardless. Coinbase proves time and time again that they are a company that knows what they are doing and can be trusted.
Don't be surprised if Coinbase continues this trend of listing forked coins that are worth something. Why would they sit on these assets and do nothing with them? They wouldn't. Airdrops incoming.
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