Coinbase NFT: Our Review of the New Marketplace
Coinbase is one of the key players in building, powering and sustaining the crypto ecosytem — many people worldwide use Coinbase as the entry point into the wide world of crypto, so much so that Coinbase has almost 90 million verified users who use the tool to invest, save and earn cryptocurrency. In the UK alone, consumer research has shown that a third of UK customers have previously purchased or still own crypto, a steady increase from the 29% in October 2021.
Only two weeks after their initial launch, Coinbase is opening its NFT Marketplace Beta to all users on the platform. Initially, Coinbase NFT was only available to a limited number of users selected from a 1.5 million strong waiting list and for the past fortnight these users have been able to buy, sell and trade NFTs. Everyone else was able to view Coinbase NFT but not interact, until this week.
The key feature of Coinbase NFT is the communication allowed — speaking in a statement, Coinbase said “Coinbase believes NFTs are here to stay, and the Coinbase marketplace is about much more than just buying and selling”…”Coinbase is focused on cultivating a community and is excited to be opening the beta up for more people to enjoy the experience they have created”. As well as navigating the NFT marketplace and building profiles to showcase their digital wares, Coinbase NFT users can follow one another and, most importantly, comment on posts.
Upon first use, the Coinbase NFT platform appears slick and easy to use — the UX is similar to that of Twitter or Instagram, including an ‘infinite scroll’ feature that allows you to get lost in the feed, voraciously favoriting NFTs that are so far out of my price bracket: it’s like window shopping at a Ferrari dealership with £10.20 in my wallet. The feed itself is great, the NFTs really pop against the sleek and simplistic site, especially the vibrant colourways of projects such as World of Women, Doodles and Azuki. Viewing these NFTs in a completely different context presents them entirely differently: you’re more able to focus on the inherent quality of the art, which isn’t necessarily the focal point when looking at thumbnails on a site like OpenSea.
Coinbase score big when it comes to usability and overall feel of the platform: it is a pleasure to scroll through the discover page, where the NFTs are given the space they need to burst from the screen, all the information a potential buyer needs is at your fingertips too with the last sale price displayed prominently but not invasively in the bottom right corner of the post. Coinbase NFT suggests similar accounts to follow based on your activity and interest, as well as showcasing the trending collections in an easily navigable and elegant manner. They only lose out because there is no available ‘night mode’ for the homepage.
The social aspect of CoinBase NFT is a more intriguing prospect: Coinbase NFT gives users the opportunity to interact with one another in the form of a comment section attached to the NFT post, much like the interface of Instagram. Take a peek into the comments under a high-traffic post and the scene is generally positive, with most people paying compliments to other’s digital assets, laughing and joking. Of course, as with any public platform, there are the “First!” comments as well as a number of new profiles begging for likes: you’ll also stumble across a few profiles whose express intent is trolling, but these are given short shrift by others, usually via the medium of an up/downvote system in the comments section, like Reddit or YouTube.
Overall then, Coinbase NFT is a visual and user experience success. Whilst it isn’t going to inspire a mass-migration from NFT Twitter, the ability to interact and connect with other users in the marketplace is a fantastic social angle that the traditional NFT marketplace big-boys never picked up on.
