blockster.com
In an announcement made on Tuesday, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange stated that it had opened a waitlist to allow users to mint, collect, and trade NFTs. Moreover, the exchange has stated that people who want to be early participants in this marketplace can sign up for the waitlist.
The exchange has not provided the full details of this NFT platform or the specifics of how it will operate. However, in a blog post, Coinbase stated that it plans to add social features into this marketplace.
the blog post read in part.
Coinbase NFT will be launched with the support of the Ethereum blockchain. However, Coinbase notes that layer two network integration will not be available during launch, meaning that users will have to deal with the high gas fees and other scalability issues on Ethereum’s mainnet. However, the exchange added that multi-chain support would be enabled later.
The move of Coinbase into NFTs could open up new revenues for the now-public company. NFTs have experienced a major boom this year, and if they continue attracting investor interest, the Coinbase NFT platform could see major growth. The exchange is mainly reliant on exchange fees in a crowded space with many exchange platforms offering support to a wide range of cryptocurrencies.
Coinbase NFT’s launch also comes as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been watching the exchange closely ever since it announced its Lend product that has since been canceled. On the other hand, Coinbase’s stock has failed to make major gains despite the gains across the crypto market. The stock is down around 27% since the exchange’s direct listing in April.
Coinbase is not the only crypto firm that wants to have a piece of the rapidly growing NFT sector. Coinbase’s major competitors, Binance and FTX, have recently announced that they are also branching into the NFT marketplace. With many analysts stating that the NFT space is showing more resilience than earlier expected, it is expected that more new players will want to join this space.
The main competitor of Coinbase right now is OpenSea, which is currently the largest NFT marketplace. In August, OpenSea recorded $3.4 billion worth of transaction volumes. In September, the platform was highlighted for an insider trading incident, which led to the firm firing one of its executives attributed to the event.
While Coinbase is venturing into the NFT space much later, Coinbase NFT is expected to see major growth given the exchange’s reputation in the crypto sector. During the third quarter of 2021, transaction volumes in the NFT market reached $10 billion, showing that Coinbase has a broad target market.
However, some critics have stated that these assets are just a speculative bubble that will burst soon. Mike Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy Digital, had earlier urged NFT investors to withdraw their profits and instead invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum to avoid making losses. According to Novogratz, NFT prices were “not normal.”