Coinbase NFT Marketplace Will Support Mastercard Payments

Coinbase will support Mastercard payments on its new NFT marketplace.

Coinbase Taps Mastercard for NFT Marketplace

Coinbase has joined forces with Mastercard in a bid to make NFTs more accessible.

The two firms announced Tuesday that they had formed a partnership to enable NFT card payments on Coinbase. In a blog post, the exchange wrote that the firm was hoping to accelerate the creator economy and make it easier for people to buy NFTs. “The experience of purchasing an NFT remains complex for many users,” the post reads. “Coinbase wants to simplify the user experience to allow more people to join the NFTs community.”

Hariramani added that NFTs would be classified as “digital goods” as part of the partnership and promised that the exchange would “”unlock” a new way to pay using Mastercard cards.” The announcement also made reference to Coinbase NFT, the exchange’s forthcoming NFT marketplace that was announced in October. It said that the partnership would help improve the user experience and make it easier to connect to Mastercard’s global network.

Mastercard also posted an announcement confirming that users would be able to make payments with Mastercard cards on Coinbase NFT. “We’re working to make NFTs more accessible because we believe tech should be inclusive,” the payments giant wrote. “Getting more people involved safely and securely is perhaps the best way to help the NFT market thrive. As it does, Mastercard sees even greater potential for NFTs’ underlying tech to go beyond art and collectibles into many more areas.”

Mastercard noted how the typical process of buying an NFT today could potentially create friction for “most people.” Buying an NFT typically requires using a cryptocurrency wallet, loading it with a digital asset such as ETH, and either minting a piece or buying it on the secondary marketplace. There are also transaction fees for using the blockchain. On Ethereum, high gas fees have priced out many newer NFT collectors over the last year.

Mastercard also confirmed that it was working on a set of “cybersecurity capabilities” to ensure that users are protected when buying NFTs. In October, the credit card firm acquired CipherTrace, a crypto intelligence company with insight into more than 900 cryptocurrencies.

Mastercard has become increasingly involved in the digital assets space as the industry has grown over the last year. In 2021, it partnered with Circle to settle USDC payments, developed a ZK-Rollup solution for scaling Ethereum with ConsenSys, and hinted at supporting stablecoin payments. Coinbase, meanwhile, is expected to launch Coinbase NFT imminently. It’s been teasing partnerships with prolific NFT artists on its Coinbase NFT Twitter account for several weeks.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the authors of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.