Are Coinbase and IDEX teaming up to take on Binance in the U.S?

Top crypto exchange Coinbase has added support for IDEX on its official wallet, allowing its customers to trade hundreds of new cryptocurrencies on the third-party "Hybrid decentralized" exchange.

The move comes months before the purported launch of Binance U.S., the regulatory compliant, North American arm of retail exchange giant, Binance.

US may intend to challenge Coinbase for market share in the U.S. by offering a broader range of assets while maintaining regulatory compliance.

IDEX support is included as part of Coinbase's freshly-announced WalletLink feature, a bridge enabling Coinbase Wallet users to connect with a suite of decentralized applications on mobile and desktop.

The IDEX integration may seem a remarkable pivot in strategy for Coinbase, a famously conservative exchange that has had one of the most cautious approaches in the industry to all things regulatory.

In arguably their most significant action against DEXes to date, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2018 settled charges against EtherDelta founder Zachary Coburn for operating an "Unregistered national securities exchange".

Jurisdictional compliance has been a core tenet of Coinbase's approach and to date the exchange has maintained geographical restrictions on its limited range of supported cryptocurrencies, treading most carefully around assets that could be construed as high-risk in the eyes of local regulators.

"Pragmatic decentralization" seems good enough for Coinbase.

In July the Ethereum-based exchange said it would begin a 30-day "Transition period" requiring all current users to register their identities and that it would soon start restricting "Certain assets" for U.S. customers, starting from July 24th. This seems to have satisfied Coinbase's compliance department-with Coinbase's WalletLink announcement coinciding precisely with the end of IDEX's KYC registration period.

The integration comes at a watershed moment in the competitive landscape for U.S. crypto exchanges, with the notion of a Binance outpost in the U.S. seeming to have pushed Coinbase into a fight to retain status as North America's de facto incumbent.