Coinbase adds Bitcoin support to crypto wallet app

Coinbase had added Bitcoin (BTC) support on its digital wallet app, the operator of the largest US cryptocurrency exchange announced earlier today.

“Starting today, you can now store your Bitcoin (BTC) directly in the Coinbase Wallet app,” the company said in a blog post, adding that enabling Bitcoin support was an important step towards achieving its goal establish Coinbase Wallet as “the world’s leading user-custodied crypto wallet”. The app already supports Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and “over 100,000 different ERC20 tokens and ERC721 collectibles built on Ethereum”, the blog post reads.

Coinbase will roll out the new update to all users on iOS and Android over the next week. Bitcoin support will be activated by default, meaning that users will only need to tap ‘receive’ on the main wallet tab and select Bitcoin to send BTC to their Coinbase wallets.

Coinbase Wallet supports both newer SegWit addresses, as well as Legacy addresses for backwards compatibility in all applications. One interesting feature is that the app provides access to Bitcoin Testnet, in order to support power users and blockchain developers.

Unlike the main Coinbase app, or Coinbase.com, where the company stores cryptocurrency on behalf of the user, Coinbase Wallet allows users to create their own crypto wallets with private keys only known to them. The product was initially named Toshi, but, like other Coinbase products, such as the digital currency exchange GDAX (now Coinbase Pro) it was rebranded in August, 2018. At the time, Coinbase described the move as “part of a larger effort to invest in products that will define the future of the decentralized web and make that future accessible to anyone”.

Coinbase has previously announced that it is also working to add support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC) and other popular digital currencies.