Coinbase Introduces Support for Solana Ecosystem

Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US, has rolled out support for the Solana ecosystem, bringing a whole host of new tokens and features to the Coinbase wallet.

“Over the past year, there has been an explosion of interest in web3 and decentralized applications, including NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi),” the exchange said in a blog post.

“One of the blockchain networks that has seen a surge in usage is Solana, which has built a vibrant community of both developers and users along the way. Today’s update makes it easier to keep track of all your crypto across an ever-growing range of supported networks, without the need to manage multiple wallet apps.”

Coinbase says its expansion into the Solana universe is only the beginning. It later plans to further integrate with Solana’s ecosystem by giving its users the ability to connect to Solana-based decentralized applications (DApps), as well as store Solana-native non-fungible tokens (NFTs) directly inside their Coinbase Wallet app.

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The exchange giant cites Solana’s relatively low costs and high speed as one of its main selling points. In addition, Coinbase points out that the smart contract blockchain is one of the fastest-growing over the last year, skyrocketing to a total value locked (TVL) of over $7.35 billion and seeing thousands of projects in multiple crypto sectors being launched, including the popular Degenerate Apes NFT collection and widely-used Serum exchange.

Any Coinbase user can now automatically create a Solana wallet through their wallet extension, and can also use Coinbase Pay to buy SOL.

Coinbase has made a point to get busier in the coming months and years, including the listing of more assets and the expansion of support for more networks.

Last year, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange’s goal was to list “every asset where it is legal to do so.

"Outside of our listing standards (for safety/legality), we don't offer an opinion on the value of each asset. We are asset agnostic, because we believe in free markets and that consumers should have a choice in the crypto economy. This is how we'll have the most innovation," he said.