The following is certainly mostly my own opinion....
Many of us know CoinBase as the company that took our Crypto virginity. Like they were the seniors and we were the frosh trying to get into some cool party and they certainly exploited us along the way. In the end though, the party is definitely worth it!
I have a soft spot in my heart for CoinBase due to the above mentioned reminisce. Big Vern, I mean Brian Armstrong is of CoinBase and is definitely more interested in CoinBase as a business, not in the true spirit of true crypto. He doesn't seem to stay on top of the latest technology, security, and programming available, and has made a few major decisions that were questionable at best and downright dirty at worst. The entire release of the Bcash trading platform, from its sudden start in the middle of the night and subsequent crashing next morning holding trades at super high prices, to the confusing similarities with actual BitCoin, it was not what you would expect from a company that just reported over $1 billion in earnings in 2017. That's right CoinBase had $1 billion in revenue in 2017. The fees are super high, and I don't make a single trade on their site anymore, because you can do it all exactly the same on GDAX, only with 0 fees! Your accounts are automatically linked.
Make of them what you will, a necessary evil to some, yet still necessary, for now. In crypto's short history, other seemingly foundational institutions have fell from Mt Gox to Cryptsy to scams like BitConneeeeeeeect!!! What will happen to CoinBase, because if they don't change something, they are going to be the AOL of crypto...
Which leads me to my entire point of this ramble, CoinBase is taking out an ad in the Super Bowl Feb 4th. That is a seriously strategic move. Just after the future contracts calling for BTC on CBOE and others, crypto may have a wave of investing. CoinBase will exploit it on ads for the Super Bowl, and then they will crush!
If you go to the Coin Base support page and type some alt coins into the search engine like say oh Ripple, Cardano, even say .... TRON... no not Tron! Yes TRON! When you type in these alt coins names and a bunch of others, the background scripts are picking up these names and under the category of "Supported Coins" nonetheless!!! There is probably some webpage running in the background as a draft on a beta server just waiting to be released when they announce the big news at the Super Bowl. Try it for yourself, what other coins do you find in the background?
Obviously they wont release them all at once, but I wouldn't be surprised if they advertise a new app during the Super Bowl that you could download and start buying new, lower cost alt coins! And that would be how CoinBase would stay on top of the crypto game and enter the new era as a dominant force. Will this actually happen, I have no idea, this is purely speculation, but it sure sounds good doesn't it?
I guess only the future will tell. Now please tell me what you think!
Please UPVOTE my post so that we can spread news like this to others so we can all be aware. Thanks for reading!
Ps if you haven't signed up yet, click the link below to get $10 free BitCoin (and so will I) and register at CoinBase!
https://www.coinbase.com/join/5a29fd05dd020b02b71a1549