Coinbase users can buy NFTs with Mastercard as the crypto exchange partners with the card giant to ease the digital art-buying experience

• Coinbase users will have an additional payment option when purchasing NFTs thanks to a partnership with Mastercard.
• The experience of purchasing an NFT remains complex for many users, especially those new to the space.
• "Buying digital goods should be as simple as buying a T-shirt or coffee pods on an e-commerce site," Mastercard said.
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Coinbase users will soon have an additional payment option when purchasing non-fungible tokens thanks to a new partnership with Mastercard.

The cryptocurrency exchange on Tuesday announced that it has enlisted the help of the payments processing giant to improve the experience of purchasing digital collectibles by classifying NFTs as digital goods. This, Coinbase said, will allow a broader group of consumers purchase the digital collectibles.

"Coinbase wants to simplify the user experience to allow more people to join the NFTs community," Prakash Hariramani, senior product director at Coinbase, said in the announcement. "Just as we helped millions of people access bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way, we want to do the same for NFTs." 

The experience of purchasing NFTs — digital representations of artwork, sports cards, or other collectibles tied to a blockchain — remains complex for many users, especially those new to the space.

For instance, in OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for NFTs, buyers have to first open a crypto wallet, purchase crypto, and use the crypto to buy the NFT.

"Buying digital goods should be as simple as buying a T-shirt or coffee pods on an e-commerce site," Raj Dhamodharan, EVP of digital asset and blockchain products and partnerships at Mastercard, said in a statement. "You can make your purchase with one click — that's it."

The efforts of the partnership will be applied to Coinabse's new NFT platform. 

Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US, revealed plans for Coinbase NFT — a peer-to-peer marketplace that will allow users to mint, purchase, showcase, and discover NFTs — in October 2021. 

The initial launch, which the exchange initially said was targeted for the end of 2021, will support ethereum-based ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards with plans to roll out multichain support later.

Coinbase joins other crypto exchanges in jumping into NFTs. Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX last year also announced the launch of FTX NFTs, which will allow users to mint, hold, authenticate, and trade digital collectibles on the solana blockchain.

NFTs recorded over $12 billion in sales on the ethereum blockchain in 2021, marking a stunning 17,864% year-on-year growth compared to 2020's $67 million, according to data from NonFungible.com.