The Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX), the exchange with the world’s fourth largest bitcoin trading volumes, has expressed some caution over the rising tide of ICOs.

GDAX, which is owned by San Francisco-based digital wallet company Coinbase and whose backers include the New York Stock Exchange, is designed for institutional traders and currently supports bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum.

The exchange has told the Financial Times that it plans to list only a small percentage of the hundreds of new coins that have been created this year due to the popularity of ICOs.

According to CoinSchedule, 2017 has seen over 200 new kinds of digital coins created and around $3 billion generated for early stage companies.

This influx of new coins has created pressure on GDAX and other exchanges to expand their listings. GDAX head Adam White, however, said that although he would be looking to support ‘dozens’ of new assets in the coming years, the immediate plans are to add three or more new coins in 2018.

Evaluation framework

GDAX has launched an evaluation framework for digital assets that lists the criteria that needs to be met in order to be admitted on to the platform. One of the benefits of releasing the framework is to provide some direction to the evolution of the ICO space.

The GDAX framework looks at a number factors, including whether the development team in question has a demonstrable track record of success or experience and whether there are real-world examples of the coin being used.

GDAX also has to consider whether including more assets advances its goal of creating an “open financial system”. The exchange has a preference to let new coins mature for a period of time before listing them.

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