One of the world’s best known cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase, is considering adding support for Tezos on its upcoming NFT marketplace.
Although Coinbase hasn’t made any official announcement of its plans, it recently held a poll on Twitter asking the community which of the three blockchains – Tezos, Polygon or Solana – they’d most like to see supported on its platform. The results of the poll suggest that Polygon won the popular vote, but the outcome is somewhat controversial as Tezos was leading for most of the poll. Then, right before the voting closed, Polygon claimed the lead with over 55,000 votes added to its count in the space of just one minute, helping it to snatch first place with 42.2% of the total 251,686 votes.
Tezos finally had to settle for third place, but it did garner 22.6% of all votes, just behind Solana in second with 26.4% of the vote.
Both Tezos and Solana would likely have done much better if not for the 55,000 suspect votes that Polygon nabbed in the final minutes of the polling. While there’s no definintive proof as such, it seems highly likely that many of those last-gasp votes were made by bots. Coinbase will surely be aware that the outcome of the poll should have been much closer than what it was.
In any case, the vote makes it pretty clear that crypto users would be happy to see all three blockchains added to the Coinbase NFT platform.
Coinbase NFT Today is an up and coming marketplace that aims to make minting, purchasing, showcasing and discovering NFTs easier than ever before. It’s intended to rival more established NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea, and like its main rival, it will undoubtedly support Ethereum-based NFT. Interestingly though, the poll shows that while Coinbase recognizes that Ethereum might be the most popular blockchain for NFTs, it isn’t necessarily the most suitable, and that’s something the community seems to understand too.
Most NFTs are tokenized digital artworks and the artists who make them are, in general, a lot more environmentally conscious than the average Joe in the street. As such, many NFT artists are keenly aware of the incredible amount of energy Ethereum burns through with its proof of work consensus mechanism. Tezos, on the other hand, is an ideal blockchain for artists wishing to embrace “clean NFTs”, thanks to its low carbon footprint that results from its reliance on a proof of stake consensus.
Tezos’ blockchain has other advantages for NFTs too, including less congestion, meaning they can be bought and sold in seconds and for far lower fees than is possible with Ethereum.
NFT artists and collectors seem to be voting with their feet when it comes to Tezos. In recent weeks there have been multiple successful NFT sales on Tezos. In February, VerticalCrypto Art announced that its ART & NFT: The Digital Roots exhibition raised over 16,000 tez (around $56,000) in sales. Moreover, one of the highest profile NFT collectors of all – hip hop legend Snoop Dogg – recently announced a 64.6 ETH (around $200,000) fund to buy up more Tezos NFTs for his collection, using his alter-ego ‘Cozomo de’ Medici’.
The influence of the Tezos NFT community was further highlighted this week when it was revealed that its NFT community was able to raise $60,000 in support of Ukraine in just 72 hours.
If Coinbase does add support for Tezos it’ll be making a very smart bet indeed, becoming one of the earliest – and biggest – platforms to support what is now one of the fastest-growing blockchains for NFTs.
