Coinbase Is Building a Whole New Platform Devoted to NFTs

Coinbase – one of the biggest and most popular cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world – has announced it is developing an entire marketplace devoted to non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Coinbase Is Growing Through Its New NFT Market

The non-fungible token world is growing every day. With so many sports-related events and even artwork now being tied to NFTs, individuals have found a way to ensure all their memories and important moments are recorded permanently to the blockchain, ensuring they live on forever.

One of the biggest NFT examples to emerge in recent months comes by way of artist Beeple, who has been selling his artwork in NFT form at around $69 million a pop. At the time of writing, it is estimated that the NFT market is worth just shy of $11 billion.

In a blog post, Coinbase expressed excitement regarding how big the space has gotten. It foresees a lot of success stepping into a market that it’s never fully explored despite being such a large crypto-based company. The firm writes:

The excitement surrounding NFTs is high, but if you’ve tried to create or purchase an NFT, you’ve probably found the user experience lacking.

Coinbase, in opening itself to the world of NFTs, is looking to change or resolve many of the issues that several users have discussed when talking about said tokens. For example, many have stated that when trying to create or trade NFTs, they often experience lackluster support from systems that are not designed to house such a large space.

In addition, they often say that user interfaces can be clunky and disorganized, and many users are turned off by the high fees that often come with NFT trading. Brett Harrison – president of crypto exchange FTX.US – commented on the situation, saying:

The NFT ecosystem has started to infiltrate pop culture but has been lacking a platform that provides easy access and exposure to the mainstream audience.

Competitors to Ethereum May Be Coming

Naturally, Coinbase’s NFT market is only in the earliest stages of development. The company has only announced plans to develop the market and has not announced an official launch date, though the company did mention the following:

Starting today, you can join the waitlist for early access to Coinbase NFT, which is launching soon. Buying and selling will be core features of Coinbase NFT. All your NFTs are on-chain [and] the initial launch will support Ethereum-based ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards with multi-chain support planned soon after.

At present, many of the world’s NFTs are largely supported by the Ethereum blockchain, though this may change in the future. Coinbase has stated its desire to host additional blockchains in the coming years, and many additional crypto firms are now discussing the prospects of developing their own chains as a means of providing developers with ways to avoid Ethereum’s high traffic and heavy fees.

Tags: coinbase, Ethereum, NFTs