It has been over 6 months since Coinbase announced it was opening a waitlist for its upcoming Coinbase NFT marketplace, but today Coinbase announced beta testers can begin using the NFT platform.
Coinbase announced the beta release of the Coinbase NFT marketplace via a blog posting and a tweet stating “HERE’S SOME ALPHA: We’re in beta” alongside a promotional video. In an additional tweet Vice President of products for Coinbase, Sanchan S Saxena announced a partnership with manifold.xyz to ensure NFT creator royalties are handled seamlessly and touted the importance of NFT creator royalties for the platform.
In a separate press briefing Saxena eluded that the design of the NFT marketplace would be a mix of social media crossed with other NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. “While it is true that buying and selling NFTs is a big part of the ecosystem today, what we have learned by talking to many customers and creators is that there is more to it than just buying and selling,” stated Saxena. “There is the community aspect of it.”
Currently with the Coinbase NFT marketplace in beta testing, there will be no transaction fees for a period of time and the NFT marketplace will look to reduce gas fees for Ethereum (ETH) transactions via a partnership with 0x Labs. Users can choose their own self-custody wallets like metamask or they can use the Coinbase Wallet. Coinbase stated that they planned on opening the beta testing to users on the waitlist based on the users position on the waitlist, there were over 8 million user email addresses signed up for the Coinbase NFT marketplace waitlist.
In addtion to Coinbase opening up an NFT marketplace, some other top crypto exchanges are also jumping in on the NFT hysteria and also opening their own NFT marketplaces. Binance launched an NFT marketplace last year and FTX also launched one in September. Nifty Gateway which shares ownership with the Gemini crypto exchange also recently opened.
