Coinbase Drops 28,000 NFTs on Ethereum

On Thursday, February 23, crypto exchange Coinbase announced the launch of a Layer-2 scalability network for Ethereum, dubbed Base. The development from Coinbase took place in collaboration with Optimism. In order to announce the news, the cryptocurrency exchange dropped a free open edition Ethereum $NFT allowing anyone to mint. Together, the crypto fans spent a total of $280,000 in transaction fees while minting over 28,000 Coinbase NFTs on Ethereum.

Just like Polygon and other Ethereum Layer-2 scalability solutions, the Base network will run atop the Ethereum mainnet. Built using the Optimism OP Stack, the Base Network will be a part of its “Superchain”. Interestingly, the name Superchain comes since all Layer 2 networks built atop OP Stack are compatible with each other.

The Base Network will work as a network so that other protocols can build on top of it and will interact only with Coinbase’s product suite. However, this Layer 2 network from Coinbase won’t have its native token.

Coinbase also made a free $NFT available dubbed “Base Introduced” through the $NFT minting platform Zora. It’s an open editor $NFT which means that anyone would be able to claim one of the identical collectibles until the minting window ends on Sunday.

Coinbase and Its NFTs on Ethereum

Since the announcement of the Layer 2 scalability platform Base, over 24,000 of the Ethereum NFTs were already minted. Coinbase stated that the goal of launching the Base Layer 2 platform is to onboard more than one billion users into the crypto economy.

On the other hand, Zora has emerged as a well-known $NFT minting platform for Web3 creators, however, crypto exchange Coinbase already has its own $NFT marketplace. But Coinbase $NFT has failed to gain traction since its launch. As per the public blockchain data, the Coinbase $NFT platform has hardly managed to garner $10,000 in $NFT trading volumes over the past week.

Although the Coinbase $NFT shows the Base, Introduced NFTs on its marketplace, they are still the secondary listings posted by users who minted through Zora. During an earnings call this week, Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi said that the exchange isn’t “throwing in the towel” on its $NFT ambitions.

In the past, the Coinbase $NFT marketplace has supported $NFT mints including significant drops like The Bill Murray 1,000. But earlier this month, Coinbase confirmed that it has “paused” creator drops on Coinbase $NFT as part of its plan of pushing resources toward other features on the marketplace.