Coinbase, a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it has officially opened its beta version of its NFT (Non-FungibleToken) marketplace to compete against the likes of Opensea, Rarible, and others.
The announcement comes nearly seven months after the initial teaser in October last year. Soon after, Coinbase opened to a small set of users number based on their position on the waitlist in the US in April.
The cryptocurrency exchange tweeted saying, “And what does it mean to be in open beta? It means we’re still working on adding more features to the product but eager for you to help us build in public.”
Coinbase’s VP of product Sanchan Saxena earlier says, “We’re building a marketplace where you can buy and sell NFTs, of course, but more importantly, you can engage. You can engage with the creator. You can engage with the collector. And you can engage with fellow collectors from a community around that NFT. This is an important piece of our strategy.”
Buy and sell NFTs
From now on, beta testers will be able to create a Coinbase NFT profile to buy and sell NFTs using any self-custody wallet. However, for a limited period of time, there won’t be any transaction fees, says the company.
“We’ll eventually add fees, which will be in line with Web3 industry standards, and we’ll provide notice before anything changes,” says the company.
Currently, the platform features a wide range of projects from featured creators like Doodles, Boss Beauties, and Azuki. According to CoinDesk, the marketplace saw just 900 transactions and 73 ETH (approx $210,000) of sales volume in the debut week of its beta. However, Coinbase didn’t disclose how many users had been granted access to the platform.
Making NFT accessible
With this platform, Coinbase aims to make NFTs more accessible by building user-friendly interfaces that put complexity behind the scenes.
In the future, Coinbase plans to add more features that will gradually bring its vision for a web3 social marketplace to life, claims the company.
The initial launch will support Ethereum-based ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards, with multi-chain support planned soon after.
The company is planning to add drops, minting, token-gated communities, and the option to buy NFTs with a user’s Coinbase account or a credit card. Further, the company intends to decentralise more features by moving them from Coinbase tech to decentralized solutions.
Sanchana Saxena, VP of Product, Ecosystem Products says, “We’re just getting started and can’t wait to explore new ways to bring people together around NFTs and the creators behind them. We’ll continue to listen, learn, and build based on feedback.”
