Earlier this week, leading American crypto exchange Coinbase and its CEO Brian Armstrong backed a commemorative NFT collection called Stand with Crypto. Although the floor price for the asset is relatively cheap, users have expended over $650,000 to cover gas fees.
What is the Stand with Crypto NFT?
On Monday, Coinbase filed a petition with the U.S. federal court, compelling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to respond to its requests for detailed crypto regulations. The financial agency had previously filed a lawsuit against the crypto exchange over listed cryptocurrencies, which it termed as securities.
Following the lawsuit by Coinbase, Brian Armstrong tweeted that he had minted an NFT called Stand with Crypto on the NFT marketplace Zora. Describing the NFT collection, the Zora platform stated:
“The Stand with Crypto commemorative NFT is a symbol of unity for the crypto community seeking sensible crypto policy. The NFT features a blue shield, representing a collective stand to protect and promote the potential of crypto.”
The NFT has a blue shield design that signals support for crypto and belief in the future of the asset class. The Zora platform added that the Stand with Crypto collection is “purely commemorative” and has no foreseeable utility or value.
According to OpenSea metrics, the floor price of the asset is 0.0012 ETH. Over 74,000 users, including Armstrong, have minted the NFT series.
High Gas Fees! Still Worth It?
Mike Dudas, the founder and general partner at the venture capital firm 6th Man Ventures (6MV) took to Twitter his complaint that the gas fee spent to mint the NFT is unreasonably high.
One key reason for the high gas fee spent on Ethereum is the fact that the network has a low throughput, hence the congestion of transactions. Dudas’ line of reasoning is that the mint ought to occur on a layer-2 network or any other blockchain with fast throughput and by extension, lesser gas fees.
