In brief
- Coinbase is acquiring Solana meme coin trading app Vector, built by the team behind the NFT marketplace, Tensor.
- The acquisition is designed to improve Coinbase’s Solana on-chain trading experience.
- Coinbase will acquire Vector’s technology, but the Tensor marketplace and TNSR token will now be stewarded by the Tensor Foundation.
American crypto exchange Coinbase announced Friday that it has agreed to acquire social meme coin trading application, Vector.
The acquisition will fold Vector’s technology into Coinbase’s DEX trading integrations as it aims to provide broader access to on-chain markets and improve its Solana trading experience.
“We’ve long supported Solana across our product portfolio, but we’re excited to double down and build towards enabling all Solana assets on Coinbase with state-of-the-art trading by default,” Max Branzburg, vice president of product at Coinbase, posted on X.
“By bringing in the best-in-class team and tech, we’ll be able to accelerate our vision of enabling lightning-fast trading for every asset on Solana, as soon as it’s created, and expand our capabilities from there,” he added.
When asked about terms of the deal, a representative for Coinbase simply told Decrypt that the acquisition did not have a significant impact on its financials.
Vector’s social meme coin trading app was launched last year by the team behind Solana NFT marketplace, Tensor.
While Coinbase is bringing in the technology and team behind Vector, the existing Tensor marketplace ownership will be passed to the Tensor Foundation, which also stewards the Solana-based TNSR token.
Coinbase will remain independent and unaffiliated with the Tensor NFT marketplace and the TNSR token.
Despite keeping its distance from the TNSR token, the token experienced a seemingly random surge in price earlier this week, leading to questions among crypto users about who was buying prior to the announcement.
TNSR has jumped more than 300% in the last seven days, even while the broader crypto market has experienced a notable selloff. Now changing hands at $0.19, it remains more than 91% off its all-time high of $2.28.
As a result of the deal, all unvested TNSR tokens belong to Tensor Labs and its founders—around 22% of the entire supply of the token—will be burned, or permanently removed from the circulating supply. The additional vesting tokens have been relocked for three more years.
Users of Vector will be able to transfer out their assets by November 26 as the mobile and desktop applications will be sunsetted. If they miss the deadline, then they will have four years to export their private keys to a new wallet.
The deal is the ninth acquisition from Coinbase this year. The leading American crypto exchange added crypto fundraising platform Echo for $375 million in October, but recently walked away from talks to acquire stablecoin platform BVNK at a reported price around $2 billion.
Shares of COIN are up down about 2% on Friday and more than 31% in the last month, recently changing hands at $233.
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