Benzinga | May 14, 2021 11:37AM EDT

Coinbase To Let The Doge In: What Investors Need To Know

Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN) is finally warming up to Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), which has had a stellar run thus far this year. At one point last week, the meme currency hit a peak of 73.76 cents, a gain of about 15,600% for the year.

What Happened: The newly listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which has so far held off from listing Doge on its exchange, gave a timeframe of six to eight weeks for the same.

When probed as to when users will be able to trade in Doge, Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong said on the company's earnings call the exchange plans to list Doge in six to eight weeks.

Drawing comparison to Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store, where millions are assets are created over time, Armstrong said Coinbase is putting a lot of work and thought into how to accelerate its pace of asset addition.

"One of those is DOGE, as you mentioned, which has been getting a lot of attention recently," the CEO said.

More broadly, the company is focused on accelerating asset addition in the future, he added.

Related Link: How to Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)

Why It's Important: Doge's march toward a record high last weekend was facilitated by anticipation ahead of Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk hosting the "Saturday Night Live" show May 8, where he was expected to make comments on the Doge.

The market, by virtue of acting on a forward-looking mechanism, promptly sent Doge crashing after Musk's appearance. It dropped to a low of 35.72 cents Thursday, though receiving intermittent support from stray tweets from Musk.

Musk in fact triggered a sell-off in the cryptocurrency market earlier this week when he said Tesla will not accept Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) as a payment option as previously announced, citing environmental concerns.

On Thursday, Musk's tweet that "he is working with Doge developers to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising," lent support to the Shiba Inu-themed currency.

Coinbase's potential adoption could offer support to Doge in the near term.

Doge, which is already a favorite with retail investors, could find more takers from among this category of investors.

It is also expected to benefit trading volumes for Coinbase; exchanges such as Binance, OKEx and Huobi, which already allow Doge trading on their platforms.

Doge is now the fourth most-traded crypto, according to CoinMarketCap.,

Meanwhile, Coinbase reported its maiden earnings report as a public company, revealing earnings and revenues that were shy of estimates. However, user statistics and the outlook were encouraging.

Doge was last trading up 30.09% at 54.07 cents, while in after-hours trading, Coinbase shares were up 0.25% at $265.76.

Related Link: Dogecoin Sees 'Global Developer Initiative' To Help Build Commercial Apps On Top Of Its Blockchain: What You Need To Know