Sleuths on Twitter have noticed that Coinbase has added a price page for an Optimism token — despite one not existing yet. It doesn’t show any price data but the page features the Optimism name and can be currently accessed.
There could be a few different explanations for this. Perhaps Coinbase is undergoing testing for these pages or a rogue employee decided to make this page just to cause rumors. Or, as was the case with Robinhood, this could suggest an imminent listing for an Optimism token.
According to Tree of Alpha, who first noticed the page, their bots (which scan for new pages on a website) picked up the page around midnight on Monday UTC time. They noted to The Block that it’s only accessible via a direct link and the page does not appear in search results on the main website.
Optimism is a scaling solution for the Ethereum blockchain. It has long been rumoured that it would be launching a token, perhaps issued as an airdrop at the point of handing over goverance of the project to its community.
Just yesterday, Optimism published a blog post that suggested this could come sooner rather than later. It said, “We’re nearing the end of a chapter and the beginning of the next — one driven by community ownership and governance. And it’s fast approaching.”
While tokens have typically taken some time before they land on Coinbase — with assets sometimes waiting years to make it onto the exchange — this has changed a bit recently. For instance, when Bored Ape Yacht Club launched ApeCoin, an airdrop to all Bored Ape NFT owners, it was instantly available on Coinbase, as well as other major exchanges. This could suggest the exchange is trying to be the first to list tokens, as opposed to the last.
We have reached out to Coinbase and Optimism and will update this article should we hear back.
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