Lost in the news of Coinbase Earn’s Stellar giveaway, which will distribute over 1 billion XLM to investors in exchange for watching educational videos, is the commitment put forth by the Stellar Foundation to tackle the problem of industry adoption.
While investors are right to fixate on Coinbase’s giveaway, which is essentially airdropping over $100 million in XLM for a miniscule amount of effort, the lasting effect of the gesture could pay even greater dividends–for both Stellar and the broader industry of cryptocurrency. According to regular polls of the investors in cryptocurrency and the mainstream market, lack of education and understanding for blockchain, crypto and digital assets is a regular feature among the public.
Coinbase, for what it’s worth, has done its part as an exchange to promote decentralization and the industry of cryptocurrency. While the exchange has taken flak in the past for suspicious market behavior and accusations of insider trading in the hours leading up to new coin listings, the Coinbase has carved a place for itself as a portal of cryptocurrency education. The most recent addition of the XLM coin now partners the U.S.-based exchange with the Stellar Foundation, a nonprofit organization who has a proven track record of pushing the net positive of digital assets.
Cryptocurrency is starting to reach a crossroads in 2019. The ongoing bear market, which some have begun to refer to as a “crypto winter,” has had the effect of shaking out price speculators and other investors looking for an easy path to riches. Instead, the industry has condensed into those advocating for the use of the technology, or at the very least taking an interest in digital assets beyond trading, leaving exclusive investors in the minority.
Barring those looking to recuperate on the severe losses experienced last year, the landscape is becoming more and more saturated with an interest in cryptocurrency–similar to that of a game-changing technology which the internet provided to 1990’s enthusiasts–looking for more than just exchanges to trade coins to no net result.
Coinbase Earn, and the recent partnership with the Stellar Foundation, are putting industry growth and investor education ahead of coin prices. The price of Stellar did not exactly benefit for the move–if anything XLM suffered from the flooding of 1 billion in currency to market investors. But the Foundation behind Stellar is looking long-term. Rather than fretting over the short term price fluctuation that may come from airdropping and the subsequent selloff, Stellar and Coinbase reason that the greatest gain comes from giving investors a reason to hold, and use, XLM.
The five Coinbase modules provide a basic look at XLM while focusing on what the cryptocurrency can and hopes to accomplish. Not only does this provide insight into the workings of the Stellar Foundation, but also gives investors reason to pause before dumping coins for short-term trading, Instead, it extends the use of cryptocurrency to the more casual investors who may only be familiar with Bitcoin, and may not understand the full extent of what cryptocurrency can accomplish on a global scale.
While the Coinbase Earn collaboration with the Stellar Foundation is a welcome crossover between to industry trailblazers, it also provides a standard for other exchanges and coin groups to emulate. Crypto adoption is a multiplier for the entire industry, and by focusing on education, coin projects can do more than just entice short-term investment interest.
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