The opening of Coinbase‘s new and much-talked-about NFT marketplace has been a long time coming for cryptocurrency fans.
Expectations and FOMO seemed really high, but the data collected post-launch, apparently, does not confirm the great predictions made.
An uphill start for Coinbase’s NFT marketplace
Coinbase, which became a public company in April last year, finally managed to open the beta version of its new NFT marketplace to the public a few days ago, but with little success.
It seems to have been an uphill climb for Coinbase in the NFT world.
Expectations were actually very high and this new launch has been widely discussed in recent months.
Even in November, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that he had high expectations for this new project and even believed that the volume of this new NFT marketplace could exceed that of the cryptocurrency exchange.
Unfortunately, however, the data from the first day of opening was not positive.
According to an analysis by Dune Analytics, the platform seems to have received little interest, with just over 150 new users, bringing the total number of users on Coinbase NFT to 1,112 as of Wednesday evening.
Obviously few users bring few transactions.
In fact, Coinbase NFT seems to have only recorded 150 transactions on its first day of opening to the public, for a total amount of $75,000 in ETH. A figure that in the NFT space is absolutely derisory.
OpenSea remains at the top of the charts
Considering the large landscape of NFT marketplaces, we can safely say that OpenSea continues to dominate the market as the largest NFT trading platform.
OpenSea is the largest NFT trading platform in the world with billions of dollars of trading volume every month.
The causes of the failure
The failure of this launch may perhaps lie in the fierce competition in the sector. There are now plenty of marketplaces covering all kinds of niches. However, there may be other factors.
Wrong timing
Coinbase NFT came onto the market at a time of market downturn. Ethereum is currently down 44% from its all-time high of over $4,800 and monthly NFT sales are also down from their January high of almost $5 billion.
New and interesting projects on the horizon
Despite the fact that the NFT marketplace already offers a wide and varied range of products, this is not deterring other teams from launching their own products on the market.
Kraken has announced in recent days that the waiting list for its NFT marketplace is finally open, offering zero gas fees.
Coinbase NFT offers no significant advantage
The crux of the matter perhaps lies here: Coinbase NFT does not seem to offer a real selling point that sets it apart from its competitors.
The service is the same and users don’t really have a real reason to move to the new platform, other than not having to pay any kind of fee for a limited period of time.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/05/08/coinbase-nft-marketplace/