Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman's Thirty-Five Ventures to create NFT drops with Coinbase

On Wednesday, Thirty Five Ventures, a venture capital firm co-founded by NBA star Kevin Durant and sports manager Rich Kleiman, announced a business partnership with Coinbase. Under the agreement, Thirty Five Ventures will work jointly with Coinbase to create nonfungible tokens, or NFT, drops, storytelling content about NFTs and crypto, as well as showcasing Coinbase's recent growth in the sector. According to the announcement, there will additionally be a philanthropic integration with the Kevin Durant Charity Foundation.

Coinbase is currently the third-largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange in the world by trading volume. At the time of publication, there is currently a waitlist of over 2.6 million users for Coinbase NFT. The company said it is currently designing a self-custody wallet for NFTs integration. By the end of this year, Cointelegraph Consulting estimates that NFT sales will surpass $17 billion.

Rich Kleiman issued the following the statement regarding the partnership:

"Historically, premium has meant brands that have been around forever, like Mercedes, Rolex, and American Express. But in five years, Coinbase has become representative of that era and is in line with our premium brand philosophy. And we’re getting into this formalized agreement with a company that is just scratching the surface on where it’s going."

Ready for the next phase @coinbase @35ventures @boardroom https://t.co/j7jMczim9b pic.twitter.com/Jn9LslDqER

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) December 15, 2021