Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States is looking to follow FTX US, a subsidiary of FTX Global Exchange, in launching an NFT marketplace, which is expected to go live by the end of the year.
The announcement stated, “Today, we’re announcing Coinbase NFT, a peer-to-peer marketplace that will make minting, purchasing, showcasing, and discovering NFTs easier than ever. Just as Coinbase helped millions of people access Bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way — we want to do the same for the NFTs.”
Since the alleged blocking of the launch of Coinbase’s yield program by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it would seem that Coinbase is looking for new ways to bring value to its customers in the form of participation in the booming industry in the cryptocurrency space right now, which is the NFT digital collectables sector.
Read: FTX US launches NFT Marketplace to support Solana-based NFTs
The NFT platform
As previously mentioned, this move by Coinbase comes after FTX US who recently announced the launch of an NFT marketplace for Solana-based NFTs with plans to support other blockchains, including Ethereum, in the future. Binance entered the NFT market in June by launching a marketplace aimed at minimizing transaction costs.
According to the announcement, Coinbase’s NFT marketplace will first be on the Ethereum blockchain. It stated, “All NFTs are on-chain. The initial launch will support Ethereum based ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards with multi-chain support planned soon after.” This puts Coinbase in direct competition with major NFT platforms like OpenSea. Data from DappRadar reveals that OpenSea’s transaction volume stands at $8.72 billion with approximately 537,100 traders making it the largest NFT marketplace in existence.
Coinbase is also allowing its customers to sign up for a waitlist which is to give those who sign up, early access to the NFT marketplace.
Read: Coinbase to raise $1.5 billion from its debt offering
Bottomline
With 68 million verified users and 8.8 million monthly active users as of Q2 2021, Coinbase’s entry into the NFT industry could provide significant competition for established marketplaces like OpenSea.
Coinbase vice president of product and ecosystem Sanchan Saxena said the nonfungible token, or NFT marketplace would allow its users to mint, purchase, discover and showcase Ethereum-based tokens. According to Saxena, the offering will allow creators to maintain control of their artwork “through decentralized contracts and metadata transparency,” with all NFTs on-chain.
COIN is trading at $249.33, down 2.80% as of the time of this reporting. It is down 0.72% pre-market.
