That's what I have been reading about as well, and when you actually start to do your own research, the insider trading accusations start to become more than obvious with the connected market activity.
Some coins have been pumped out of nothing before Coinbase announced they were considering listing them, and later you find out that these coins have been added to Coinbase.
It's pretty shocking that one of the most important fiat entry points is participating in this shady business, because no one gives a shit about coins as 0x and ETC, especially not after the investors are done dumping.
That makes far more sense than the argument that coinbase just want more markets to benefit off exchange fees..
After reading the article from @o_e_l_e_o it looks like the "Digital Currency Group" basically has a massive say in the choice of names being added to Coinbase... I tried to find more information about them, but it looks like they own CoinDesk too? The majority of other blogs are sourced from it..
Their "portfolio" includes a hell of a lot of projects not just limited to coins :
https://dcg.co/portfolio/ Even if it doesn't include all the coins coinbase announced, but that might just be because the ones that
are included like XRP, Augur, Decentraland are going to be pumped sooner than the others
Pretty interesting finds overall.. Good catch o_e_l_e_o