Coinbase Ventures Joins Liquid Staking Protocol Rocket Pool’s Oracle DAO

Coinbase Ventures has increased its involvement with liquid staking protocol Rocket Pool. Last Friday, the investment branch of one of the largest centralized exchanges by trading volume joined Rocket Pool’s Oracle DAO (oDAO), a group of permissioned special node operators that perform extra duties for the protocol.

As such, Coinbase Ventures will receive a share of the 15% of the total RPL inflation produced at each rewards period dedicated to Rocket Pool’s Oracle DAO. RPL, the native token for the Rocket Pool ecosystem that provides direct incentives, insurance and governance for protocol according to a blog post, has traded flat in April, ranging between $43 and $44, per CoinGecko. Additionally, rETH, Rocket Pool’s staking derivative, has a premium against ETH: On Uniswap, 1 rETH swaps for 1.07295 ETH at press time.

Earlier this year, Rocket Pool founder David Rugendyke announced that Coinbase Ventures had invested in the staking platform. Coinbase Ventures’ recent inclusion with Rocket Pool’s oDAO comes as many in the crypto space are gearing up for Ethereum’s Shanghai hard fork, set to enable ether withdrawals for the first time on April 12.

A pseudonymous Rocket Pool node operator, who goes by [object Object] on Discord, said they welcome Coinbase Ventures as a member of the Oracle DAO, but also responded to CoinDesk, “I personally would like to see more non-U.S. based entities in the oDAO going forward. As it stands, 8/18 oDAO members are based in the U.S.”