NFTCulture Morning Minute 2/24/23

Coinbase all in on L2

Coinbase has announced the launch of Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 network built using Optimism’s OP Stack, with a goal to make on-chain the next online and onboard 1 billion plus users into the crypto economy. The platform aims to become the on-chain home for Coinbase and an open ecosystem where anyone can build dapps, a bridge that brings users on-chain and enables them to go anywhere, including L1, other L2s, and ecosystems like Bitcoin and Solana. The announcement also included the launch of a “free” mint commemorative NFT called “Base, Introduced,” as a part of the Base launch.

The NFT is effectively fungible besides serial numbers and has been delivered via a “free” airdrop, which costs 0.000777 ETH (~$1) and is mintable on Zora until midnight EST on Sunday. Almost 100,000 of these NFTs have already been minted, and speculators have paid up for low serials, with serial #7 currently holding the high sale at 2.5 WETH, with #420 catching 2 ETH along with a few others. In total, there has already been 400 ETH traded on this collection, which is openly minting for another three days. The Coinbase team has gone out of their way to declare that they are NOT issuing a new token for Base, but some analysts have suggested that this NFT could be Coinbase’s de facto new token. The announcement is big for Coinbase, Ethereum, and likely all of Web3. The move also underlines Coinbase’s ambition to expand beyond just an exchange for buying and selling crypto assets to become a more integrated player in the overall blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Spotify is trying out a new use case with their token-gated playlists, allowing holders of specific NFTs to access exclusive audio content only accessible for those in their NFT community. The feature will be launched with KINGSHIP and Overlord. Holders of these NFTs will follow specific steps to gain access to the exclusive playlists, which can be accessed via the Spotify app.

Other NFT News

• In the bidding for the Dookey Dash golden key, the UPDAO from Pixel Vault made the highest bid of 690 ETH $2,348,863.50.
• Blur and LooksRare, which are two marketplaces that compete with OpenSea, have decided to no longer show OpenSea’s flagged items by default.
• PROOF’s new product, Artist Profiles, has been launched, which offers users the opportunity to learn more about the artists and their backgrounds.

1️⃣ Introducing the newest PROOF product: Artist Profileshttps://t.co/DGDrE2KEg0

🎨 Browse all the artists in the PROOF ecosystem
🎨 Learn more about each artist’s background
🎨 Discover all their PROOF artworks, Artist Spotlights and other content, including external media pic.twitter.com/dlF2CiBdEA

— PROOF (🥃,🦉) (@proof_xyz) February 23, 2023