Coinbase (COIN) shares rose 6% Thursday after reports that the crypto exchange’s new non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace has a waiting list of more than one million people who signed up on the first day it was announced earlier this week.
- As of Thursday morning, the waiting list was at 1.35 million, which is four times the 300,0000 users that OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, has, according to a note from financial services firm BTIG.
- “We believe the immediate and emphatic reaction of retail customers to its announcement on Tuesday that it would launch a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace by the end of the year has demonstrated its ability to accelerate the transformation of its franchise,” BTIG analyst Mark Palmer, who has a buy rating and $500 price target on Coinbase, wrote.
- Coinbase’s planned NFT marketplace comes as rival exchange FTX on Tuesday announced it was moving into the NFT business with a trading platform for digital collectibles on the Solana blockchain. Trading in NFTs climbed to $10.7 billion in the third quarter, an increase of more than 700% from the previous quarter, according to a report by blockchain analytics firm DappRadar.
- BTIG estimates that Coinbase could add $137.5 million in revenue, or about 2% of BTIG’s full-year 2021 revenue estimate for the company through the new NFT marketplace.
See related: Visa Launching NFT Program to Support Digital Artists
