A Guide to the Digital Asset Listing Process at Coinbase
TL;DR
Here’s what project teams need to know about the digital asset listings process on our centralized exchange (CEX):
The application is free and merit-based. Every asset is evaluated against the same standards.
Apply directly on our listings page. Timelines can vary significantly – from hours to months – depending on factors including your asset's complexity and the completeness of your submission.
A complete and well-prepared application is important for an efficient review.
A listing allows your project to reach an engaged, global network of users on a platform widely recognized for its commitment to trust and compliance. Our operational scale and secure custody offer a trusted path to deep liquidity.
The Regulatory Moment
The U.S. digital asset landscape has entered a new phase. The SEC’s focus on digital assets and laws like the recently enacted GENIUS Act and the proposed federal market structure bills are signals of clearer, rules-based frameworks for our industry.
Project Crypto: An SEC initiative that aims to enable America’s financial markets to move onchain by modernizing federal securities regulations.
GENIUS Act: Creates a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins and innovation while safeguarding consumers.
Federal Market Structure Legislation: Seeks to create clear definitions and regulatory frameworks for digital assets.
President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets: This interagency group, which includes the Treasury, SEC, and CFTC, outlined a comprehensive national strategy and provided key recommendations for a new regulatory framework to foster responsible innovation and protect consumers.
Against this backdrop, Coinbase's commitment to operating within a clear, rules-based framework guides our decisions. While other platforms may take a different approach, our rigorous listings standards are designed to foster trust and operate within existing regulatory environments. Those fundamentals remain, but we now offer greater clarity on expectations so teams can prepare more effectively for a listing on Coinbase.
The Steps to Get Listed
The process generally follows these steps:
Submit your application: You’ll complete an online questionnaire capturing key information, including your whitepaper, team background, tokenomics, links to source code, block explorers, and any third-party audits.
Business evaluation: After submission, we assess business factors such as market demand, community traction, and the technical requirements for integration.
Core review: Your asset is then evaluated by, at a minimum, our core reviews: Legal, Compliance, and Technical Security, which are described in detail below.
Communication with Issuers: Our team typically communicates with issuers via email and phone/video calls. While we can’t share when or if we will definitively list an asset, a timely and complete response from your team is critical for an efficient review.
Approval: Following the conclusion of our review process, assets that are approved are eligible to trade on Coinbase Exchange. Trading becomes available upon completion of our technical integration work. Because of local regulations, a particular asset may be approved and listed in some regions before others.
Before you start: Applying is free. Listing timelines depend on your project's complexity and the completeness of your application. A listing makes your asset eligible to trade on Coinbase.
A Deeper Dive Into the Core Reviews
A Coinbase listing connects you to a platform with deep liquidity, a global customer base, and operational scale proven through market cycles – all within an environment built for trust, security, and consistency.
We uphold this standard by reviewing every asset across three reviews that protect customers, support market integrity, and help ensure long-term viability.
Legal: We examine whether trading the token would be considered a securities transaction in the relevant jurisdictions based on applicable legal and regulatory frameworks. Other legal or regulatory frameworks may apply depending on the asset and the services offered to users.
Compliance and Risk Mitigation: We examine key elements like token distribution and onchain activity for financial crime and consumer safety risks.
Technical Security: We run a thorough security check – reviewing elements like contract code, design, and operational risks – to decide whether we can safely custody and list the token. For new blockchains, we evaluate their technical design, consensus mechanism, network resilience, and governance model.
Avoiding Common Roadblocks
Delays or other issues in the listing process are often related to a few common areas of our review. Because Coinbase does not list securities, project teams should be aware of how the following factors can influence our review:
Public statements (like whitepapers, websites, and marketing materials) can impact the regulatory risk profile of your token. Successful projects teams tend to highlight their token's purpose, governance rights, and real-world usage, rather than promising the asset is “going to the moon” or similar. Providing clear and factual risk disclosures can also help.
The degree of centralized control in a protocol's technical architecture, including the presence of single points of control, is a key area of assessment from a blockchain security perspective.
An application with incomplete details, including a lack of information on governance, tokenomics, or technical documentation can delay the review process, as can failing to notify us of major changes to your project during the review process.
Listing Timelines
The most common question we get is: “When will my token get listed?” The answer depends on a number of factors specific to each asset, as well as our interest in listing it. These factors include consumer interest, project quality, depth of review required, and completeness of your submission.
On average, our due diligence on a token takes one week, and we can enable trading within two weeks of approval. However, the total timeline can be significantly shorter or longer, and is based on factors such as the token's complexity, whether we support its network, the responsiveness of the project team, and the time it takes us to complete the technical work for trading and custody. In general, the time from our review of an asset to its listing is under 30 days.
Tokens on supported networks generally can be supported faster; new or unsupported chains take longer (as of this publication, supported networks for expedited listings include Ethereum, Base, Solana, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, and Avalanche). This is because a new blockchain requires our engineering teams to build a dedicated integration from the ground up. This involves architecting custom node infrastructure, validating the unique consensus model, and developing new APIs and compliance controls to ensure the network can be securely supported at scale. To meet our rigorous standards, we must completely and comprehensively audit each of these steps.
Once an asset undergoes our core legal, compliance, and security reviews, we also evaluate the following market factors to determine listing priority and timing, including:
Demand: Trading volume, market cap, and liquidity.
Traction: Number of holders, active wallets, TVL, and onchain activity.
Qualitative Signals: Community sentiment and team track record.
Phased Market Launch
Approval is followed by an orderly market rollout to protect market integrity.
Transfer Only: Deposits open on Coinbase so liquidity can build.
Auction: Limit orders are collected for a set period (at least 10 minutes) to help determine an indicative opening price utilizing natural price discovery. An auction can conclude with either an initial matching trade or an opening quote if there is no match.
Trading State: Upon conclusion of an auction, a book can enter limit-only or full trading.
Limit Only: Limit orders can match, but market orders remain disabled.
Full Trading: Both limit and market orders are enabled for all users.
During each phase, we monitor liquidity, order book depth, and volatility. If metrics fall outside healthy ranges, we may remain in or exit the auction, or halt trading if in a trading state.
Pre-Flight Checklist
Teams that prepare these items tend to move faster and with fewer follow-ups.
Final Thoughts
A Coinbase listing goes beyond market access; it's entry into an ecosystem where trust, scale, and resilience are the foundation. Our process is thorough because our standards are designed to protect customers, support healthy markets, and give projects the strongest possible foundation for long-term success. A listing is the beginning of a long-term relationship, providing access to our dedicated services and a collaborative approach to support your project's continued evolution, from technical upgrades to community growth.
Ready to apply? Visit coinbase.com/listings to start your application. For updates on new assets and process changes, follow @CoinbaseMarkets on X.
Note: This guide covers centralized exchange (CEX) listings on Coinbase – assets listed for trading on our exchange after our formal review process.
About Dan Kim
Dan Kim is VP Business Development and Listings at Coinbase, the world’s most trusted cryptocurrency exchange where he leads strategic partnerships with developers, creators, and users of the global web3 ecosystem. Dan also serves as Coinbase’s Head of Listings, and works with crypto project teams from all around the world so that their tokens can be bought, sold, and held in the safest way by more than 100 million Coinbase customers.
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