Coinbase wallet ends support for ETC, BCH, XRP, XLM

The largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. announced that its wallet will no longer be supporting Ethereum Classic (ETC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), XRP and Stellar (XLM) as of January 2023, according to a recent company blog post.

See related article: Coinbase CEO reaffirms exchange’s BTC holdings after CZ’s tweet

Coinbase said the update — originally intended to come into effect on Dec. 5 — was due to “low usage,” though users will still be able to access their funds on this wallet using a recovery phrase.

The exchange warns users that any attempts to send or receive unsupported assets on the platform will cause users to lose them.

Despite the bearish sentiment on these tokens, all four gained in Wednesday morning trading in Asia along with most of the major tokens, with the largest of the four, XRP, rising 5% to US$0.49 in the 24 hours to 10:30 a.m. in Hong Kong. ETC, BCH, and SLM all rose at least 2.2% in the same time frame.

The ending of support for XRP in particular may have taken some investors by surprise, as it is currently the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, according to CoinMarketCap.

XRP has seen a great deal of attention recently as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple Labs Inc., whose payment network is powered by XRP, nears the date for summary judgments to be filed by both parties.

BCH and ETC are both forks of the two leading cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, and have seen inconsistent usage since their creation. ETC saw a surge of interest ahead of the much-anticipated Merge on Ethereum, but has lost more than 50% of its value since August to trade at $20.38 on Wednesday morning.

See related article: SEC gets support from New Sports Economy Institute in XRP lawsuit against Ripple