1 / OpenSea vs. Coinbase: Battle of the NFT marketplaces. Who will win?
2 / I’ve worked with dozens of marketplaces and some of the biggest companies in consumer. There are ten reasons marketplaces win:
Curation
Trust
Price
Convenience
Service
Distribution
Seller Tools
Accessibility
First Mover Advantage
Innovation
Let’s analyze and keep score.
3 / Curation
OpenSea has an early lead with its reputation as the default place to launch projects — but they aren’t known for exceptional curation. They will have to deepen relationships with top creators to hold their lead.
Coinbase is unproven.
Point to OpenSea. (1-0)
4 / Trust
Coinbase has built a rep for being THE place to buy your first cryptocurrency. With 70M users compared to OpenSea’s 200k wallet addresses, they are advantaged.
However, OpenSea has accrued trust as the leading name in a space plagued by security issues.
It’s a tie.
5 / Price
OpenSea charges 2.5% for every sale. Coinbase hasn’t announced their take-rate, but they will need to compete. And as a publicly-traded company flush with cash, they could easily subsidize that fee and charge less — even zero.
Point to Coinbase. (1-1)
6 / Convenience
Coinbase is already a platform where you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies, the stake for rewards, create wallets, and store NFTs. Add the ability to buy and sell NFTs, and you have a one-stop crypto shop.
Point to Coinbase. (2-1)
7 / Service
Neither company has a reputation for exceptional service. And in a space with so many issues, this is a huge problem.
However, Coinbase has over 1000 employees. Opensea? Under 100. It’s early, but Coinbase’s scale will grant them leverage.
Point to Coinbase. (3-1)
8 / Distribution
There’s a lot of anticipation that Coinbase will activate their 70M users into NFTs.
Realistically, only a fraction will take the leap. But let’s not underestimate their leverage or the incentives they can provide to their users here.
Point to Coinbase. (4-1)
9 / Seller Tools
OpenSea is skyrocketing due to its solid feature base, while also falling behind on support. It’s a symptom of success.
Coinbase will no doubt innovate, but they are following in OpenSea’s footsteps as the original in this space.
Point to OpenSea. (2-4)
10 / Accessibility
For all its success in onboarding collectors to NFTs, OpenSea has not perfected the onboarding process. It’s no easy feat.
Coinbase, however, has proven that it can tutorial and abstract away the most difficult procedures.
Point to Coinbase. (5-2)
11 / First Mover
Despite Coinbase’s advantages, it is * very * difficult to shift consumer behavior once it has been established on another platform.
OpenSea is THE breakout marketplace. It would be unfair to award any less than three points for this.
3 points to OpenSea. (5-5)
12 / Tie-breaker: Innovation
In a space growing this fast, innovation in the marketplace model could fundamentally shift the entire market.
OpenSea and Coinbase have both proven themselves as innovators. Who will create an environment that fosters more innovation?
13 / I’m still on the fence.
OpenSea, despite being a first mover, feels like a challenger. Younger and more agile, but experiencing growing pains.
Coinbase has massive stores of data and users to leverage, but is unproven and could be slogged by the size of their organization.
14 / While it’s too early to declare a winner, it’s clear that both companies have their competitive advantages. All things considered, they are fairly evenly matched.
Whatever the outcome, it will be fun (and historic) to watch. I wish them both the best of luck.
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writer: Chris Cantino
