Coinbase Launches Zcash Trading Services on Coinbase Pro

Popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is launching Zcash (ZEC) trading on its professional trading platform Coinbase Pro. The announcement made via Coinbase’s blog page states that inbound transfers of the currency will begin at 10 p.m. PST on Thursday, November 29, 2018, though early deposits have already begun.

The blog reads, “Once sufficient liquidity is established, trading on the ZEC/USDC order book will start. ZEC trading will initially be accessible for Coinbase Pro users in the U.S. (excluding New York), the U.K., the European Union, Canada, Singapore and Australia. Additional jurisdictions may be added later.”

At press time, ZEC is not yet available on Coinbase.com or on the company’s mobile apps. The blog says a separate announcement will be made once ZEC is active on these platforms.

Zcash is a cryptocurrency that offers users additional privacy. The asset comes in two forms: shielded and transparent, with the former encrypting transaction information to ensure it remains unseen by third parties. Coinbase Pro says it will support deposits from both the shielded and transparent forms of ZEC, though only withdrawals to transparent addresses will be permitted.

“In the future, we’ll explore support for withdrawals to shielded addresses in locations where it complies with local laws,” Coinbase’s blog states.

The launch is set to occur in four stages. The first,“transfer-only” stage went live at 10 a.m. PST on Thursday, November 29, in which customers could begin depositing ZEC into their Coinbase Pro accounts. Posting limit orders can occur via the second, “post-only” stage, which will occur at 10 p.m. on the same date.

This stage will last for approximately one minute and will be followed by a “limit-only” stage, where limit orders will begin matching. Customers will have to wait an additional 10 minutes before the fourth stage, full trading, occurs. From there, customers will be able to submit market orders and enjoy full trading services through Coinbase Pro including limit, market and stop orders for ZEC.

Coinbase unveiled a new listing process last September with the goal of listing all assets that meet the company’s standards and comply with local laws as quickly as possible. As the cryptocurrency market contains thousands of unique assets, each currency listed undergoes a thorough inspection and usually only satisfies listing requests in a “jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction” manner, meaning certain coins may only be available to customers in specific regions for limited periods of time.

Since implementing its new process, Coinbase has gone on to list several new assets on Coinbase Pro including Basic Attention Token (BAT) in early November and ZRX, the token of the 0x protocol in October. Coinbase had been promising to potentially add these coins and others like it since March of 2018, saying that it was looking into placing several Ethereum-based tokens on all its trading platform in the “coming months.”