Coinbase Launches New NFT Market In US To Boost Slowing Trade This Year

JAKARTA – The leading US cryptocurrency exchange agency, Coinbase Global Inc, Wednesday 20 April, launched a new NFT marketplace. This launch is seen as a sign of confidence in digital assets specifically when the market is showing signs of cooling.

This crypto exchange platform, was first announced in October. According to a Coinbase spokesperson, the platform was initially only available to a “small number” of people in the United States. However, more users will be added from the waiting list over the next three to five weeks as the new platform is piloted.

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a type of crypto asset that uses the blockchain to record ownership of digital files such as images, videos, or text.

The NFT market exploded in popularity throughout 2021. Some NFTs have generated millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency, but growth is expected to slow down in 2022.

On the popular OpenSea marketplace, NFT sales on the Ethereum blockchain halved to around USD 2.5 billion in March, from USD 5 billion (IDR 72 trillion) in January.

“We believe NFT will still be here,” a Coinbase spokesperson said, as quoted by Reuters. "In addition to buying and selling NFTs, our marketplace offers a better way to find the right community and a better space where they can feel connected to one another."

NFTs are largely unregulated by the government, and reports of fraud, counterfeiting, and market manipulation are common with these products.

LooksRare, one of the NFT marketplaces, has generated billions of dollars in volume from a small number of wallets trading NFT among their own users at inflated prices.

Another marketplace, Cent, stopped trading in February because there were individuals selling NFT content that was not theirs.

Coinbase said it would allow copyrighted content or fraud protection to be reported to them. The ability to create (or "mint") NFTs will be added to the Coinbase NFT platform in the future.