Coinbase Releases Free Ethereum NFT via Zora to Mark Base Network Launch
by James · February 23, 2023
Coinbase announced a major new project today in the form of Base, a layer-2 scaling network for Ethereum built in collaboration with Optimism. To mark the news, the crypto exchange dropped one free open edition Ethereum NFT for anyone to make – but it’s not finished Coinbase’s own struggling NFT marketplace.
“Base, Introduced” is a free NFT the Coinbase made available through Zoraan NFT coining platform and startup focused on Web3 creation tool. It’s an open edition NFT, meaning anyone can claim one of the identical collectibles until the coin window ends on Sunday, with a limit of one NFT per wallet.
Already have more than 24,000 of them Ethereum NFTs have been hammered since this morning’s announcement by Base. As a result, NFT’s smart contract– which contains the code that drives the project – has become biggest “gas guzzler” on the Ethereum networkwith gas (or network transaction fees) worth over $271,000 spent in the last three hours.
Zora is a well-known NFT coining platform for Web3 creators, but Coinbase already has its own NFT marketplace. However, Coinbase NFT has gained very little traction since its launch last spring, with public blockchain data showing less than $8000 worth of total NFT trading volume in the past week.
Compare it with someone Trading volume worth $596 million over the past week on Blur, the top NFT marketplace that recently surpassed longtime leader OpenSea on the back of whale traders flipping assets in a rush to maximize BLUR token trading rewards.
Coinbase NFT shows Base, introduced NFTs in the marketplace, but they are secondary listings posted by users who have created through Zora. Coinbase president and COO Emilie Choi said on an earnings call this week that exchange is “don’t throw in the towel” on its NFT ambitions, despite having “a very lean team on it now.”
The exchange’s NFT marketplace has supported NFT coins in the past, including significant drops like The Bill Murray 1000. However, the company confirmed earlier this month that it was “pausing” the Coinbase NFT creator to push resources toward other features in the marketplace.
The free Base NFT nods towards recently “open edition meta” in the NFT worldwhere creators launch low-priced NFT coins that then incorporate gamification elements, in some cases incentivizing holders to “burn” (or permanently destroy) a number of them in exchange for a unique, rarer version that is not identical to the others .
Coinbase has not promised any future benefit or benefit to Base NFT. However, there are the NFTs find some traction on the secondary markets. Most of them are selling for a relatively low price right now, about 0.01 ETH ($16) each, but some of the early numbered editions or those with so-called “vanity numbers” command higher prices.
For example, NFT #888 is selling for 0.888 ETH (roughly $1,455) this morning and the buyer has listed it for 8,888 ETH ($14,700) hoping to secure a significant flip. Other three-digit NFT issues have sold for hundreds of dollars since the free mint launched this morning.
