Coinbase is getting in on the NFT

Coinbase made huge news around nonfungible tokens (NFTs) space. The company is joining the fray, and this begs the question of what Coinbase's entry into the NFT space means for OpenSea?

As a reminder for new readers, NFTs allow people to identify ownership and authenticate digital assets on a blockchain cryptographically. These collectibles are also stored on a blockchain to be transferred easily from one owner to the other in seconds.

The company has just announced the launch of its NFT marketplace. This marketplace will allow peer-to-peer NFT trading. It will enable users to store their NFTs in a Coinbase wallet.

This is a significant move with severe implications for the sector. The company is a major player in the digital asset market, is well-known. The company currently has 68 million customers. Coinbase, as we have already discussed, is a highly profitable company.

The company anticipates that revenues will reach nearly $7.2 million this year. Coinbase predicts that it will make almost $3.3 billion in profits. This is quite impressive. 

This is an excellent sign of how huge the NFT market opportunity is. However, NFTs remain a niche market. According to the Nonfungible website, only 10,000 NFT wallets were active in the past month.

Think about this: OpenSea is the most popular NFT platform, with less than 400,000 users. It has processed more than $9 billion in transactions this year. What happens when Coinbase's 68 million users are turned loose on NFTs by Coinbase? 

To satisfy my curiosity, I signed up for the company NFT waiting list this week. I wanted to see how extensive the waitlist was. Here's what I discovered: More than 2.4 million people have already registered for the waitlist. It opened just several days ago.