Coinbase plans to join the NFT marketplace
Coinbase announced on Monday that it’s officially jumping into the world of NFTs.
The cryptocurrency exchange platform explained that it plans to sell, trade, and mint NFTs, a move that will expand the cryptocurrency’s marketplace.
While there isn’t much information on how Coinbase will join the NFT marketplace, the exchange platform has noted that the marketplace will be called Coinbase NFT, which will include “social features” that’ll welcome creators from all over the world.
“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,” Coinbase vice president of product Sanchan Saxena wrote in a blog post.
The main motive behind Coinbase’s emergence into NFT seems to revolve around increasing social engagement.
Coinbase intends to “curate your personal feed” of NFTs and display the NFTs you purchased on your profile “so you can make connections with like-minded fans of digital cats, punks, apes, and beyond,” according to The Verge.
During the initial stages, The Verge explained that Coinbase NFT “will support Ethereum based ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards, all NFTs will be on-chain, and there are plans for multi-chain support soon after launch. Besides whatever curated feed the company plans to introduce, Coinbase NFT seems similar what competitor OpenSea offers as the current NFT marketplace du jour.”
While TechCrunch dived deeper into the topic, noting that Layer-2 scaling integration seems to be missing from Coinbase’s plans. Layer-2 scaling integration is a method that reduces the costs and environmental impact of minting and trading art on the Ethereum blockchain.
NFTs have been under fire in the past for the way they duplicate the real-world art market, carrying environmental concerns with it due to its high energy consumption required to run the Ethereum blockchain.
It’s important to note that Coinbase’s plans are still fresh and could potentially witness a change in the future.