Close on the heels of crypto exchange OKEx entering the DeFi and NFT space with the launch of new offerings, another popular player in the market – FTX, has announced its very own native NFT marketplace. The ongoing NFT craze has seen established players in the crypto market try to cash in on the hype and with their existing reputation and infrastructure, an extension into NFT marketplaces seems like a natural diversification of business interests for crypto exchanges.

FTX’s NFT marketplace, however, is available exclusively for its US-based customers at the moment, and will allow its users to mint and exchange NFTs across Ethereum and Solana blockchain networks. While the solution will initially permit only minting, buying and selling, FTX could enable features to allow users to make deposits of external NFTs into their offering as well as withdrawals in a few weeks’ time.

To commemorate the launch, the crypto exchange put out its own NFT featuring word-art that reads ‘Test’, inviting bids from users for 24 hours. At the time of writing, the bid has closed with the NFT having been sold for a phenomenal $270k.

Just to put the craze in numbers, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea enjoy a total trading volume of nearly $5.5 billion making it the largest in the space by a wide margin. The second ranking marketplace, Axie Infinity, has an overall volume of around $1.9 billion in comparison.

In less than eight hours since the platform went live, FTX received submissions for creation of more than 1,000 NFTs. The marketplace levies a 5% charge to buyers and sellers in each sale, earning a total of 10% on every sale conducted on its platform.