On Wednesday (April 20), cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) launched their long-awaited beta version of NFT. The exchange allows 3 million users on the waiting list to use the platform for the first time.
This market, first announced in October 2021, will support Ethereum-based NFT trading. The platform also integrates the form of social networking, making them stand out from other competitors.
The platform allows users to show off their profiles and track those with content on the "For You" page, like social networking platforms like Instagram and TikTok. A Coinbase spokesperson said that users can also click "like" and comment on each other's posts.
"The platform is not only aimed at buying and selling, but it's also geared toward building a community," Sanchan Saxena, the platform's vice president, said on Tuesday. "The platform also helps you connect and engage with people. One thing I've said from the beginning is that this is a social market."
This market will support "all kinds of self-storage wallets" next to the official Coinbase Wallet. This is the decision that the exchange made to create "an NFT environment for everyone". The platform will also support purchases with Fiat currency through credit cards.
Saxena also stated that initially the market will have no transaction fees (besides Ethereum gas fees and creators' royalties), but then they will apply a low amount of fees.
Coinbase's NFT Plan
Coinbase launched a plan known as "radical decentralization" in the market, meaning that many features would initially be centralized but then gradually moved to the on-chain.
One of these features is user comments. The comments will initially be stored on Coinbase's servers but will then be moved to the Blockchain.
Another feature that is called a "follower graph" by this exchange, users can take this feature from one platform to another.
A new direction for NFT?
A social network-oriented market is a refreshing initiative in the NFT sector today, but this could become popular if more and more competitors enter the market.
In March 2022, The CEO of the Meta Platform (FB), Mark Zuckerberg, announced that NFT would be integrated into Instagram, but the details of the integration remain unclear.
But whether or not the focus is on social networking, any market involved in ethereum's NFT world has to go head-to-head with OpenSea. According to data from DappRadar, the platform has made 95% of Ethereum-based NFT transactions in the past 30 days.
