CoinList introduced the CoinList Trade cryptocurrency exchange and a $10 million fund-raise led by Polychain Capital, with Twitter (TWTR.NYSE) Jack Dorsey among others, participating.
The specifics of the exchange aren’t exactly in the offering at this stage of development, but with high powered backing and support and SEC compliance, it should definitely be on everyone’s radar. This isn’t a Mark Zuckerberg play for global dominance masquerading as a remittance coin—it’s an exchange where tokens and coins can be traded in a legal, equitable fashion, under rules and guidelines set aside by government agreement.
“Crypto needs a trustworthy platform for launching new projects. CoinList leads the industry in that role, and trading is a logical next step,” said Dorsey.
Coinlist is a token-offering platform launched in 2017 that helps companies navigate the often murky regulatory waters surrounding initial coin offerings. They have helped projects such as Algorand, Filecoin and Dfinity with their token offerings and distributions.
Next, the company launched CoinList Build to help projects with more than just token sales. The company started running ‘hackathons’ to get applications built on top of their networks. Nearly 2,500 developers signed up, and built more than 180 projects. The common theme with this company has been partnering with projects to solve problems in crypto.
Here’s a list of problems these initiatives have engaged:
This company’s got some initiative, and there’s not even the slightest whiff of scam. Good start.
“In the past couple years, we’ve been focused on powering the top token sales in crypto and helping token projects build their developer communities with online hackathons. But we always knew we wanted to go further down the financial services stack and build an exchange. After a year-plus of work, here we are! We’ll be launching in most US states and many non-US jurisdictions with BTC, ETH, ALGO, and USDC all tradeable — plus, we support fiat on- and off-ramps, so you can trade directly from your bank account. And we will soon be expanding both the assets offered and the jurisdictions supported,” said Andy Bromberg, founder of CoinList.
They’re planning on rolling out the four named coins, and adding more later as they scale. Also, the number of states undisclosed in Bromberg’s quote is 38, but there isn’t any word on what international jurisdiction the exchange will be available in. Given that I was able to get an account within five minutes, and am presently on the wait-list (along with 3000+ others) to be able to use the exchange when it goes live, we can assume that Canada is one of those jurisdictions.
The service
My antipathy towards hot wallets and exchanges is well-documented. They’re a necessary evil in that they’re required to access the market for cryptocurrency, and my advice for any would-be investor remains the same:
- Get in,
- Get your coin,
- Get it off the exchange.
- Stash it
- Shut the hell up
Even though this exchange has partnered with BitGo for their security, it’s only a matter of time before some enterprising hacker finds a hole in the security and dances off with your coins. But there may be a difference, and it’s not something that we’re going to have an answer for anytime in the future—but a compliant exchange would be eligible for insurance and plenty of other amenities not offered to a non-compliant exchange—ergo, there’s a possibility in the future that your coins may be protected in the same way as fiat currency.
When this exchange finally goes live, and there’s no date set for that eventuality, then check back in for a detailed review.
—Joseph Morton