Coinbase seals partnership deal with Mastercard to facilitate NFT purchases

The exchange announced its upcoming NFT marketplace last year, and its waiting list has already accumulated over 2.5 million users

US-based cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, on Tuesday, announced it is working with multinational financial services firm Mastercard to allow users to buy NFTs using cards. Most of the existing NFT marketplaces currently only support crypto payments for the collectables and digital items they host.

The Coinbase-Mastercard partnership aims to simplify things for users of the former's upcoming NFT platform by allowing them to complete purchases using the latter's cards. By making the experience of purchasing NFTs suitable for novice users, the pair hopes to reach a broad market.

"As an important step in this mission, we're excited to announce today that we're partnering with Coinbase to let people use their Mastercard cards to make purchases on Coinbase's upcoming NFT marketplace," the team wrote in the news release.

Notwithstanding the explosive growth witnessed in the NFT industry, the Brian Armstrong-led exchange contends that the experience of buying digital collectibles is still elaborate.

Mastercard compares buying NFTs to buying coffee pods

Mastercard observed that making an NFT purchase should, ideally, be as straightforward as shopping for coffee pods in an online store.

However, that isn't the case as things stand. Instead, interested users have to go through a lengthy process that includes setting up their crypto wallets, buying crypto before using it to get an NFT.

The payment firm will offer a better solution by eliminating the need to have a crypto wallet which will benefit the demographic outside crypto enthusiasts. Both parties agreed to categorise NFTs and other collectables as 'digital goods,' making them attractive to a wider consumer base.

Coinbase wants to address the 'pain-points' in NFT exposure

Coinbase's senior director of product Prakash Hariramani identified the poor accessibility of NFTs as the reason behind the decision to band together with the payment processing giant. Hariramani revealed that the exchange wanted to ensure more users could get exposure to NFTs with no trouble.

"Millions of people were able to access bitcoin for the first time by using Coinbase. So, we want to do the same thing for NFTs with Mastercard by solving the pain points — to make it as easy as possible to buy an NFT and make sure it's the best consumer experience," the Coinbase director said in a related interview.

Coinbase's NFT platform, which will allow users to mint and trade NFTs, has been in the pipeline for about three months.

Many rushed for a spot when the exchange announced the platform in October. The peer-to-peer platform's waitlist got more than 1.4 million entrants in the first two days. This number of those on the waitlist has since surpassed 2.5 million.