Monitors show Coinbase signage during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York on Wednesday, April 14, 2021.
Michael Nagel | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Coinbase is finally getting into Dogecoin.
Starting Tuesday, the crypto exchange will offer its pro users the opportunity to trade Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a joke and got started this year by frequent tweeting from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Dogecoin is currently trading at 32 cents, up nearly 6,000% for the year. However, it has fallen more than 50% since the May high.
Coinbase is one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world and, as the name suggests, their pro service is aimed at professional traders. Dogecoin can also be purchased on the Robinhood app and through Gemini.
Coinbase said in a blog post that it will “immediately” start accepting incoming transfers to Coinbase Pro. If there is enough liquidity, Dogecoin will begin trading on Thursday at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time in supported locations. However, trading will be staggered.
The company plans to start in three phases: post-only, limit-only and full trading.
“If at any point one of the new order books does not meet our assessment of a healthy and orderly market, we can keep the order book in a state for an extended period of time or suspend trading,” the company wrote, citing its trading rules.
Dogecoin is not yet available on Coinbase’s primary website or its consumer mobile apps. The company said there will be a “separate announcement when and when this support is added”. For the time being, this means that private investors will have to look elsewhere.
Coinbase, which went public in April, makes most of its money trading and storing Bitcoin and Ethereum, the largest cryptocurrencies.
CEO Brian Armstrong was a public proponent of the meme-inspired Dogecoin. Speaking on the company’s conference call on May 13, Armstrong said he “cares about the asset increase.”
He named Dogecoin as one of the cryptocurrencies that got a lot of attention and shared the company’s plan to list the token in six to eight weeks.
