Coinbase launches social NFT marketplace in limited beta, just as NFT sales dive

Image: Coinbase

The NFT marketplace is accessible to a small group of people who will be invited based on their position on the waitlist. The company is looking to take on established players in the space by adding social features, like a comment system with upvotes and downvotes.

The post on the Coinbase website looks like a cross between OpenSea andInstagram. There are profiles where users can show off their collections, as well as a discover feed that will recommend NFTs to you based on what you buy, who you follow, and more.

Image: Coinbase

There's a shop tab that you can visit to purchase NFTs. Currently, the marketplace only supports the ether block chain, and users have to use a wallet such as the one offered by Coinbase or MetaMask. While the company has said that they will support Mastercard in the future, prices are only listed in the currency of their choice.

It feels like it's getting into NFTs a bit late, because it's a major player in the exchange world. The NFT marketplace tracker shows that trading volume and the number of traders on the top marketplaces have almost universally decreased in the past month. OpenSea, the largest NFT shop, has fewer trades than it did in March. Between October, 2021, and January, 2022, search interest in NFTs rose, but then fell back to normal levels.

Graph: Google Trends

There are a variety of seemingly essential features that aren't in the current version of the marketplace, according to the company. Minting, NFTs, and even the ability to purchase the token with your credit card are all planned for the coming weeks and months. The company says it will work through the waitlist, where people are ranked in part by how many others they have joined.