Today in Crypto: Coinbase Bullish on NFTs; Crypto-Focused Political Donors Prefer Dollars Over Bitcoin

In cryptocurrency news, Coinbase might see another $1.26 billion in revenue from its NFT segment, according to Needham analyst John Todaro, Coindesk wrote Thursday (March 17).

The NFT business from Coinbase hasn’t officially come out, but CEO Brian Armstrong said that during the earnings call, the market has been ripe.

Todaro’s scenario would have the Coinbase NFT platform with fees at 2.5%, volume of $1.5 billion and annual revenue of $450 million.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency industry insiders donated $7.3 million to political campaigns and committees in 2021 through the end of January, but almost all of that money came in dollars — cash, checks and credit cards — rather than in bitcoin or one of the other token types, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Federal Election Commission records show $580,000 in crypto donations to political committees during the current election cycle, which runs through the midterm elections in November. A handful of super PAC donations comprised the lion’s share of that total, the report said.

Cryptocurrency donations have been allowed in politics since 2014, but FEC’s reporting guidelines require that campaigns and committees convert the digital assets to dollars before spending the money, which triggers a processing fee, on top of the extra record-keeping and disclosure required.

ActBlue and WinRed, online platforms that serve Democrats and Republicans, respectively, don’t accept crypto donations at all, the report says.

Elsewhere, Universal shopping app nate has been expanding its payment options, letting shoppers add both cards and banks to their accounts for one-click purchasing, a press release said Thursday.

That’s slated to start this year, and shoppers will also be able to pay with any crypto wallet.

Albert Saniger, nate’s CEO, said the company’s mission was to “allow you to buy anything in the world, using any payment method in the world, consolidating all your shopping into one seamless, universal, and private interface.”

Also, European Union finance watchdogs have said anyone buying, selling and trading crypto should look out for risks, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

The European Supervisory Authorities, which includes regulators of the banking, securities and markets, and insurance, has said cryptoassets aren’t suited for “most retail consumers.”

That comes because of the rise of crypto promotions on social media and from influencers. There is more risk of misleading advertisement, especially among those promising fast or high returns.

And, Russia-based Sberbank now has a license from the Bank of Russia to issue and exchange digital assets, Coindesk wrote Thursday.

This comes two months after the bank had advocated for a full ban on trading, mining and using crypto.

Sberbank withdrew from European markets after sanctions over the Ukraine invasion.

Finally, Bloomberg wrote that crypto doesn’t seem to be a successful tool for avoiding the sanctions that the U.S. and Europe have leveled on Russia.

“We have not seen evidence of Russia or Putin systematically using cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions,” Jonathan Levin, co-founder of Chainalysis, a blockchain-analytics firm that sells anti-money laundering services to the government, told the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.