Sanchan Saxena, vice president of product and ecosystem at Coinbase, gave a hint about the marketplace’s architecture during a press
briefing on Tuesday, saying it would be a hybrid of social media platforms and other NFT marketplaces like OpeaSea.
Although purchasing and selling NFTs is a significant component of the current ecosystem, Saxena asserted that there is more to it than that. “There is more to
it than simply purchasing and selling,” he added. “There is the social component to it.”
Saxena claims that the site will offer chances for interaction between users and creators. Users of Coinbase NFT will be able to follow the profiles of artists and
other users, comment on their work, and browse a customized feed to find new NFTs based on interaction and purchases, just as on many social networking sites.
Coinbase is getting into NFTs. The cryptocurrency exchange said Tuesday it plans to launch a marketplace that lets users mint, collect and trade NFTs, or
nonfungible tokens. Users can sign up for a waitlist for early access to the feature, the company said.
NFTs are one-of-a-kind digital assets designed to represent ownership of online items like rare art or collectible trading cards. They aren’t fungible, meaning
you can’t exchange one NFT for another as you could with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Sales of such tokens have boomed this year. The NFT market topped $10 billion in transaction volume in the third quarter of 2021, according to DappRadar, a
the company that tracks data on crypto-based applications.
Notable purchases include the almost $70 million someone shelled out for a digital collage made by Mike Winkelmann, the artist known as Beeple, and the
nearly $3 million another person paid for the first-ever tweet.
Coinbase said its NFT marketplace, called Coinbase NFT, would include “social features” and tap into the so-called creator economy, a term used to describe
the world of people who make money posting videos and other content online.
What are NFTs?
Wen Coinbase NFT? Soon.
We recently met with 100+ creators and we’re continuing to build the product based on community feedback. We appreciate your patience and can’t wait to show you what we’re cooking up.
💙🙏🔜 -Coinbase NFT
— Coinbase NFT (@Coinbase_NFT) March 14, 2022
Advocates say NFTs are a way to fairly compensate artists who’ve seen their income decline due to the widespread availability of media online. Critics, on the
another hand, view them as another speculative bubble in the crypto market that’s waiting to burst.
Still, a move into the NFT space could be a way for Coinbase to branch out into new revenue streams — the company is currently heavily reliant on exchange fees. It would also pit the firm against other crypto start-ups like Gemini, Binance, and OpenSea, which is backed by early Coinbase investor Andreessen Horowitz.
Last month, OpenSea admitted insider trading took place on its platform. The company is by far the biggest NFT marketplace, according to DappRadar.
Bitcoin exchange More than six months after the company said it would start a queue, Coinbase’s non-fungible token (NFT) market has entered beta.
In a blog post published on Wednesday, the cryptocurrency exchange claimed beta testers for Coinbase NFT will have the ability to create online profiles and
purchase and sell NFTs.
KEY POINTS
- Coinbase has opened a waitlist for a marketplace that lets users mint, collect and trade non-fungible tokens.
- The NFT market has boomed this year, with sales volume topping $10 billion in the third quarter, according to DappRadar.
- The move could be a way for Coinbase to branch out into new revenue streams — it currently relies heavily on exchange fees.
At the time of publication, more than 8.4 million email addresses were on the waitlist for Coinbase NFT. The crypto exchange reported more than 89 million
verified users trading $547 billion in quarterly volume, should the exchange’s liquidity extend to its NFT venture.
Coinbase is one of a few crypto exchanges attempting to get in on NFT sales. Major crypto exchange Binance launched an NFT marketplace in June 2021
aimed at minimizing transaction cost, and FTX and its United States arm introduced a marketplace in September, allowing users to trade NFTs cross-chain on
the Solana and Ethereum blockchains.
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According to data from DappRadar, OpenSea ranked first among NFT marketplaces with roughly $130 million in 24-hour volume. However, the recent sales
performance of an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s genesis tweet suggests the market may be slowing — a user purchased the tokenized image in 2021 for $2.9 million,
while the highest bid at the time of publication is roughly $32,000.
