Photo: The Coinbase Blog
Coinbase, the US leading crypto exchange, has added support for Bitcoin to its Coinbase Wallet app. The announcement has been made in the company’s blog post. It reads:
“The new Wallet update with Bitcoin support will roll out to all users on iOS and Android over the next week. Bitcoin support is activated by default — all you need to do is tap ‘Receive’ on the main wallet tab and select Bitcoin to send BTC to your Coinbase Wallet.”
Coinbase Wallet is the product that has replaced Toshi, the first wallet to launch crypto collectibles. Coinbase Wallet is the company’s way to accelerate the adoption of crypto and dapps around the world. With Coinbase Wallet, customers are able to receive airdrops and ICO tokens, buy and store unique non-fungible tokens and use them in games, or trade them on marketplaces, access leading decentralized exchanges and relayers to buy and sell tokens. The difference of the Wallet from the main Coinbase app is that with Coinbase Wallet, users store their own crypto protected by their unique private keys, while in the main app, you can buy cryptocurrencies and the exchange itself stores the keys centrally.
Coinbase explained:
“With Coinbase Wallet, your private keys are secured using your device’s Secure Enclave and biometric authentication technology.”
Coinbase Wallet already provides support for Ethereum (ETH) and over 100,000 different ERC20 tokens and ERC721 collectibles built on the Ethereum platform. Moreover, Coinbase Wallet supports both newer SegWit addresses with lower transaction fees, as well as Legacy addresses for backward compatibility in all applications. The app also supports the Bitcoin Testnet for developers and power users.
With support for Bitcoin, Coinbase becomes closer to creating of the world’s leading user-custodied crypto wallet. As the exchange said, adding support for Bitcoin is “an important next step in that direction.”
It seems that this initiative is just a beginning of something great. The Coinbase team is working further on improving the Wallet and adding more digital coins.
They said:
“We’re also working on support for Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and other popular cryptocurrencies.”
Bitcoin support will be activated by default, and starting from next week, users will be able to see this in action.
Coinbase Ever Expanding Its Geography
Coinbase is known not only for a range of its products but also for active expanding its geography. In December 2018, Coinbase expanded its product to several European countries and overseas territories, including Lithuania, Iceland, Andorra, Gibraltar, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. At that time, Coinbase promised to continue expanding rapidly into new regions and adding assets to the Coinbase platform to meet customer demand. 2019 has recently begun, but the exchange has already kept to its promise.
In January, Coinbase entered new markets, making its services available to high-volume businesses and institutional customers across the Asian region. Now, customers from Asia have a chance to enjoy the services of Coinbase’s flagship trading platforms for institutions and its cold storage service known as Coinbase Custody. And it’s safe to say that this year, more regions will get access to products offered by the leading digital exchange.
