FTX US has intentionally listed only 27 assets, a fraction of its parent company’s 322. CEO Brett Harrison says the company is not sure where regulations are going to end up in terms of what tokens are allowed to be listed or not. FTX US is also wondering whether exchanges will receive enforcement action for listing certain tokens that are deemed to be securities later.
Securities are investments like shares and bonds that a company sells to raise capital, people purchase it with the hope that the seller’s efforts will help them make money. However, Harrison says that what constitutes security doesn’t matter as it takes attention away from larger considerations about what’s worthwhile for the consumer. FTX US wants to list very, very high-quality project projects with very clear roadmaps. It wants very clear utility. As such, Harrison wants to emulate Coinbase’s more laissez-faire approach.
Christine Brown, Robinhood Crypto’s outgoing COO, shared similar thoughts. Brown had said the exchange’s strategy is a little bit different than other players who are just racing to list as many assets as possible right now. Robinhood believes the short-term gain the exchange might get is not worth the long-term trade-off for its users.
Meanwhile, Coinbase under the guidance of Brian Armstrong has tried to list every asset where it is legal to do so. It also warned that offering a token or coin doesn’t constitute an endorsement of the project. In his first earnings call, Armstrong told shareholders that Coinbase needs to accelerate the process of reviewing assets. He believes the world will quickly get full of assets and tokens that exchanges cannot keep up with.
