Coinbase, a San-Francisco based bitcoin wallet & exchange platform, has announced it will support the trading of ether, the digital token of the Ethereum blockchain network. Trading in ether will begin next Tuesday, May 24th.

Ether trading will be only available to users of the Coinbase exchange platform, with all Coinbase users having access at some point during the summer. According to a CoinDesk

Adam White, vice president of business development at Coinbase, explains:

“In addition to better highlighting the exchange that Coinbase is becoming we’re rebranding as GDAX, which stands for Global Digital Asset Exchange.”

Earlier today, rumors began to circulate on twitter regarding the addition of ether on Coinbase, following a tweet by bitcoin trader WhalePanda, who tweeted a screenshot showing ETH/BTC & ETH/USD trading pairs on Coinbase.

According to statement made by White, Coinbase employees have been keeping track of the many recent development surround the Ethereum ecosystem, as well as participating in meetups to learn more about the innovative digital currency. White also mentioned that engineers at Coinbase have been tinkering with Ethereum by building a variety of services on its versatile blockchain.

White explained that “unprecedented” demand from Coinbase users, as well as the growing Ethereum support from other digital currency exchanges, pushed the company to add ether trading pairs.

More recently, New York’s only licensed digital currency exchange, Gemini, launched its own ether markets.

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