Discriminating against Solana, promoting Base? Coinbase's "self-interest" and bias

Author: Alex Liu, Foresight News

Coinbase is the only cryptocurrency exchange listed on the U.S. stock market, wielding significant influence in the industry.

However, despite its leading position, many controversial actions by Coinbase have drawn criticism from various industry figures, such as having "selfish" interests and biases in "public chain support." This "selfish" bias manifests in many ways.

Discrimination Against Solana

"Thoughtful" Reminder

When you send cryptocurrency using the Solana network on Coinbase, a "thoughtful" reminder appears at the bottom of the page: Send crypto for less: Use a faster and cheaper network for future sends.

Abnormal Deposit and Withdrawal Times

Users who frequently use Solana to send and receive cryptocurrency know that transactions typically arrive within seconds. Additionally, deposits and withdrawals of cryptocurrencies like USDC through centralized exchanges on the Solana network can be confirmed within minutes. However, when withdrawing USDC from Coinbase, we found that Coinbase defaults to using the Ethereum mainnet, which takes about 3 minutes—compared to Coinbase's own Ethereum Layer 2 Base, which only takes 17 seconds, while Solana takes about 1 hour.

This situation has been confirmed by multiple Coinbase users on social media.

On-chain, but Not Including Solana

You can earn rewards simply by holding USDC in an "on-chain" wallet.

However, the Solana network is not counted as "on-chain," even though it may be more popular than other networks on the list.

Poor Support for Solana

Coinbase's support for the Solana network is extremely poor, often experiencing network delays and performance degradation.

This has led Placeholder partner and well-known VC Chris Burniske to publicly urge Coinbase to improve its support for the Solana network.

What’s the Reason?

Coinbase is heavily promoting its own Ethereum Layer 2 Base. In terms of comprehensive fees, application ecosystem, and user numbers, Solana is the biggest competitor to the Base ecosystem. By providing extremely poor support for Solana, Coinbase is "artificially" lowering the user experience of Solana.

Transferring Assets to Base

According to Arbitrum co-founder Steven Goldfeder, Coinbase is suspected of transferring billions in corporate assets to Base to increase its "TVL."

Not Supporting Competitor Network Upgrades

When the L1 public chain Celo announced its transition to L2 (via a hard fork upgrade), Coinbase stated it would not support this upgrade. This will directly lead to the delisting of the CELO token from Coinbase after it becomes L2.

This action has also been viewed by the community as a typical case of Coinbase suppressing L2 competitors for Base and not supporting the expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem, receiving widespread criticism from community members.

Conclusion

As a leading exchange in the industry, Coinbase should bear more industry responsibility. Such "selfish" biases are truly disappointing for users and practitioners. It is hoped that they can recognize the impropriety of their actions, allow for fair competition in the market, and promote healthy industry development.