On Wednesday afternoon, Coinbase launched the first phase of its long-awaited non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace to compete with OpenSea and Rarity. In its official announcement, Coinbase stated that this initial beta test of its NFT exchange is only open to an unspecified number of users who had already signed up for its waitlist for this service, which had more than 2,1 million. potential users awaiting access at press time.
According to the statement, Coinbase plans to gradually increase access to the waiting list over time. For now, beta testers can trade NFTs using any self-custody wallet, whether it's the Coinbase Wallet or not. For a limited time, there will be no transaction fees for NFT platform users. Coinbase is currently the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States and stated in its announcement that it wants to be a community hub for NFT creators and collectors.
Why is Coinbase expanding into NFTs?
While Coinbase claims it wants to serve as the curator of the NFT community, the most obvious reason for its move into NFTs is money. According to the 2021 NFT Yearly Report, prepared and published by nonfungible.com, NFT sales exceeded $ 24,5 million in 2019, then grew 236% in 2020 to more than $ 82,5 million, for then go parable with an impressive 21.350% to more than $ 17,7 billion in 2021.
And there are no signs of slowing NFT sales in 2022. In January 2022, the largest NFT platform - OpenSea - saw its monthly NFT sales revenue exceed $ 5 billion. If OpenSea kept this pace, that platform alone would generate $ 60 billion in revenue this year.
Coinbase will soon be the dominant NFT platform
However, OpenSea's sales will likely begin to decline now that Coinbase is setting up its own NFT store. It is a virtual certainty that Coinbase will be the dominant player in the NFT market space. At the time of writing, there are more than 2,1 million people on the waiting list to be a part of the Coinbase NFT platform - and people can continue to sign up for a spot on that virtual list. Additionally, Coinbase has 8,8 million monthly active users and 56 million verified users in total.
And even though OpenSea is currently the top NFT marketplace, it only averages around 489.000 monthly active users, according to DappRadar - which is only about 5,5% of Coinbase's monthly user base. The number of users is clearly in Coinbase's favor, it's only a matter of time before it takes the top spot in NFT trading.
