Popular US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced that it will open a waiting list for an NFT marketplace to launch later this year.
Coinbase follows after FTX and Binance
The NFT marketplace would allow its users to mint, buy, discover and present Ethereum-based tokens. This said Coinbase Vice President of Product and Ecosystem Sanchan Saxena a blog post. According to Saxena, the offering allows creators to maintain control over their artwork “through decentralized contracts and metadata transparency,” with all NFTs on-chain.
The Coinbase announcement comes after crypto exchange FTX and its US-based subsidiary launch a marketplace. In it, users can trade NFTs cross-chain through the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, entered the NFT market in June. The exchange launched a marketplace aimed at minimizing transaction costs.
Coinbase Entry into NFT Industry
Coinbase has 68 million verified users and 8.8 million monthly active users as of Q2 2021. So Coinbase’s entry into the NFT industry could certainly provide competition for established marketplaces such as OpenSea and Rarible. OpenSea’s head of product Nate Chastain has been criticized for using burner wallets to buy NFTs on the platform. Here the artwork could get more attention on the front page of the website. The platform mainly uses Ethereum, which dominates sales in the NFT market.
According to data from DappRadar, the total transaction volume on OpenSea was $8.7 billion at the time of publication, making it the largest of all NFT marketplaces. NFT sales through the Pokemon-inspired Axie Infinity game came in second at $2.5 billion.