Why Coinbase Is Merging Its USD, USDC Order Books

Crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc COIN plans to merge its U.S. dollar order book with its USD Coin USDC/USD order book.

What Happened: In an announcement on Wednesday, Coinbase said it plans to unify the two order books to create “more seamless trading with deeper liquidity.”

The order book merge will come into effect on July 13 across all Coinbase trading platforms, including Advanced Trade.

“Coinbase Exchange users will be able to deposit USD or USDC and their account will be automatically credited on a 1:1 basis with USD,” said the exchange.

“The unified USD balance can be used to trade on USD order books or withdrawn to either USD or USDC.”

Some market participants were opposed to the move to treat both assets as the same, seeing as USDC is a dollar-pegged stablecoin that exists independently on the blockchain.

See Also: HOW DOES COINBASE MAKE MONEY?

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, Coinbase shares closed 2.79% lower on Wednesday.

Bitcoin BTC/USD was trading at $20,076 at press time, down 1.03% over the last 24 hours. Ethereum ETH/USD was trading at $1,091, down 4.74% over the same period.

Photo via Iryna Budanova on Shutterstock