Coinbase works with Mastercard to allow fiat payments for NFTs

Users of Coinbase’s upcoming Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace can now make their NFT purchases using the services of the major credit card company, Mastercard. The agreement between the two major companies aims to pave the way for non-crypto users to directly buy NFTs using fiat currency. This will allow users to get NFTs without having to register for a crypto wallet and buy digital tokens on a crypto exchange.

Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president of digital asset and blockchain products announced in their blog post on Tuesday, January 18, that NFTs are considered digital goods, thus they can be purchased using their credit and debit cards. He further added that partnering with Coinbase will ensure that NFTs can be for everyone and is ‘the best way to help the NFT market thrive.’

Furthermore, the blog stated that Mastercard sees NFTs go beyond art and collectables. To get more people involved in the NFT market safely and securely, the credit card company ensures to implement their cybersecurity capabilities. This way, customers’ data is protected and the NFTs they purchased are secure.

Coinbase first announced its plan to have its NFT marketplace called ‘Coinbase NFT’ last October 2021 with a goal to let its users trade, sell and mint NFTs. Since then, over 1 million people have signed up to be on the waiting list. One of Coinbase’s main focuses is on making the marketplace available to US users first before making it available in other countries. 

Prior to Coinbase’s plan to launch its own NFT marketplace, other large crypto exchanges such as Binance already started their own. Last June 2021, crypto exchange Binance launched their NFT platform with the aim to ‘provide the highest liquidity and cheapest fees for users’. Another exchange exclusively for US-based customers, FTX, followed later in September.

Demand for NFTs this 2022 will surge according to the recent report of data acquisition and analysis company, DappRadar. It also reported that NFT trades are ‘looking strong’ within the first 10 days of 2022 after the NFTs traded at $10.7 billion in the 3rd quarter of 2021 and $11.9 billion in the 4th quarter.

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