Opensea, The Largest NFT Marketplace

NFTs rose to prominence in 2021, with adoption and awareness rapidly increasing into 2022. While most people outside of the movement consider NFTs to be digital art, they actually have an abundance of uses that could change business, marketing, contracts, finances, and life as we know it. But that’s for another time.

Today, we’re going to discuss the Opensea NFT marketplace. The platform that has become the go-to for buying and selling NFTs of all kinds. If you’ve looked into buying NFTs, you’ve heard of Opensea, coined as the most popular and best NFT marketplace there is.

But what is it, and should you be using it?

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What Is An NFT?

NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are unique assets on a blockchain identified by one-off identification codes and metadata. These items are 1-of-a-kind, meaning they cannot be exchanged for an equivalent item.  

In comparison, cryptocurrencies are fungible tokens. You can swap 1 Bitcoin for a different Bitcoin, and you will have the same item of the same value. That is not possible with NFTs.

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What Is Opensea?

Opensea is thought of as the best NFT marketplace. It is the platform NFT creators, owners, and investors go to buy and sell NFTs, mainly art pieces or collections. NFTs listed on Opensea include:

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• Art
• Music
• Domain names
• Virtual worlds
• Trading cards
• Collectibles
• Sports assets
• Utility NFTs like special membership passes

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The ground-breaking Opensea marketplace caters to the trading of NFTs from a range of blockchains including:

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• Ethereum (ETH)
• Polygon (MATIC)
• Klaytn (KLAY)
• Solana (SOL)

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How Can I Buy NFTs On Opensea?

To purchase NFTs on Opensea, you’ll need a digital wallet with cryptocurrency stored in it.

However, if you want to browse and get a feel for Opensea before investing in your own NFTs, you can. Simply head over to the Opensea website and take a look around.

Before loading up your wallet with cryptocurrencies, be sure to check the crypto you’re buying is accepted on Opensea. If not, you’ll be in a position of having to pay additional gas fees to swap your crypto.

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Currently, currencies accepted by Opensea include:

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• Ethereum (ETH/WETH)
• Solana (SOL)
• Avalanche (AVAX)
• USD Coin (USDC)
• Dai (DAI)

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Opensea says the platform supports some other payment tokens, but you can’t currently use fiat currency, such as $, £, or €, to purchase NFTs.

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What Are The Benefits of Using Opensea?

Competitively Low Commissions

Opensea takes 2.5% of every NFT sale. This puts them as one of the lowest and most competitive NFT marketplaces in the space.

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Free To Create NFTs

Opensea makes it possible for anyone to create NFTs for free, even without blockchain or coding knowledge. The majority of Opensea’s competitors charge for this function.

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Smart Contract-Secured

Opensea uses blockchain smart contracts, making it near-impossible for hackers or any fraudulent activity to take place. All buyers and sellers can be confident in the transactions they make.

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A Huge Audience

Currently, Opensea has over 1 million registered users, with 121 million people visiting the website every month. This highly active and growing user base ensures buyers have access to the best NFT marketplace, and sellers can reach engaged buyers.

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What Are The Risks of Using The Opensea NFT Marketplace?

Fake Or Stolen NFTs

There are millions of NFTs for sale on Opensea, and a portion of them will be fake or stolen. The crypto and NFT space is unregulated, so it’s difficult to tackle this, but users can report fake or stolen items when they see them.

Before making a purchase, you should check that the wallet address that originally minted the NFT is genuine. Most NFT projects will list the wallet address on their website and social media. Cross-reference the mint address on Opensea with the one the project provides to check authenticity.

One of the amazing things about blockchain is you can track the history of an item to its original creation.

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Phishing Scams

Avoid any phishing email or message linking to a website asking for your private keys. This isn’t unique to Opensea – phishing scams are everywhere. The keys to your wallet are for you and you only – never share them!

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Listing Prices

If you’re buying or selling, you need to be careful with your listing prices. As a buyer, if it’s too good to be true, it usually is. And, as a seller, it’s easy to make a mistake with a decimal place and list your highly valuable NFT at a much cheaper price than its market value.

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In August 2022, someone accidentally listed a BAYC for 0.75 ETH ($3,066 at the time) instead of 75 ETH. The unfortunate seller made a typo that cost them around $297,000.

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In Summary

Opensea is the best NFT marketplace for people to buy and sell NFTs. With low commission rates and millions of active users, it’s the place for low and high-value NFTs.

Whether you’re an experienced developer, artist, or investor, or you’re new to the space, Opensea is suitable. Tools, help guides, and tutorials allow beginners to navigate their way, and a streamlined UX makes it easy for seasoned investors to buy NFTs quickly.

As always, beware of the potential risks, such as phishing scams, anomaly list prices, and fake NFTs.

To get started with Opensea, you need a digital wallet. If security is your thing, Escrypto offers institutional-grade protection, keeping your crypto and NFTs safe.