The largest NFT marketplace in volume, Opensea, has had a difficult start to the year. Instead of a corresponding figure, trading volumes indicated a falling one. Could September give the ailing platform some much-needed breathing room after some good August numbers?
Giving the wrong answer on OpenSea, the most well-known NFT marketplace online can be expensive. The popularity of Bored Apes, cartoon primates connected to distinctive cryptocurrency coins, soared in the previous year. The current lowest model costs $309,000, yet OpenSea is swarming with knockoffs. The Phunky Apes Yacht Club (PAYC) as well as PHAYC projects, which included the flipped versions of native Bored Apes, competed for the honor of being the most accurate imitations of the sought simians; alternative apes, of which there are several, were simply copy paste reproductions.
When OpenSea prohibited PAYC and PHAYC in December, the crypto community, whose spending has driven the present NFT mania, expressed displeasure. The action ran counter to OpenSea’s self-described position as an advocate of Web3, a decentralized version of the web free from gatekeeping and censorship. Just a few days later, another blog post by Moxie Marlinspike, the former CEO of Signal, whose experimental OpenSea had withdrawn NFTs, created the perception that OpenSea was in danger of turning into another established tech platform, the “How are you, fellow kids?” to the edgy Web3 rebellion.
The phenomenal growth of OpenSea has increased revenue, partnerships with tech behemoths like Twitter, and financing for the firm, but it has also brought on a tonne of problems as the business attempts to compete with constantly occurring security incidents as well as endless copycat NFTs. As a result, OpenSea is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If OpenSea is able to fix those issues, cryptocurrency purists may react negatively, which has already sparked the creation of a rival NFT marketplace with the express purpose of poaching its members.
On the contrary, digital art creators believe that OpenSea does not go nearly far enough in outlawing plagiarism and unruly behavior. These individuals are among those whom the rise of NFTs has frequently been characterized as a blessing. The user of the @NFTTheft Twitter account, which is dedicated to uncovering plagiarism in OpenSea as well as other NFT businesses, is harsh.
In the same breath, one may name the precise choices that turned OpenSea into both a significant challenge and a success story. Everyone will be able to “mint” their NFTs on the platform for free, the company announced in December 2020. Three months later, it was added to by the declaration that NFT compilations would no longer require prior approval from OpenSea in order to be listed. This business model made OpenSea the largest NFT marketplace on the internet, in sharp contrast to highbrow NFT platforms like Superrate Nifty Gateway, which showcased carefully curated art collections.
OpenSea has been suffering as a result of its lightning expansion. Launched in 2017 with support from startup incubator Y Combinator, the business had five workers as of March 2020 when it unexpectedly found itself in the center of a worldwide NFT frenzy. “OpenSea was truly at the foundation of the NFT sector, and they were just not able to maintain this incredible expansion,” explains Gauthier Zuppinger, co-founder of NFT data provider NonFungible.
No longer As Open
Data from the decentralized application tracker DappRadar shows that on August 28, OpenSea handled $9.34 million of NFT (fungible token) transactions, a significant decrease from the $2.7 billion high reached on May 1. The monthly volume statistic was $9 million.
The platform’s all-time high was still reached in January 2022, however, OpenSEA reached a somewhat lower level this month. The September number decreased by 85% from the prior year. Compared to August’s $529 million in 2022, it was likewise down 13%. The number of customers also decreased, from almost 60,000 in January 2022 to just 22,140 at the end of August and 27,000 in September.
A crypto winter was predicted for the second quarter of the year, which may have contributed to the delay in NFT transactions at OpenSea. Additionally, numerous analysts projected that the NFT bubble will burst. The number of unique buyers for Bored Epps Yacht Club, the best collection on OpenSea, fell to its second-lowest level this month as well.
A Fresh Breath Of Air?
Despite its past difficulties, the NFT sales platform has important goals and partnerships going forward. For instance, on September 19th, Opensea introduced SeaDrop, a fresh as well as secure open-source contract. In order to power the Droplets experience, it eliminated the need for creators to design unique smart contracts. It’s not like that, though.
The top NFT marketplace in volume stated in August that Polygon, a layer 2 scalability solution, had been incorporated into its implementation of the port’s protocol. Furthermore, Opensea works to enhance and broaden users’ overall browsing experiences. The new layout seeks to produce a user-friendly interface for finding intriguing projects and assembling collections. The portal also aimed to emphasize high-quality material and a diverse range of project types.
What Types Of Payment Does OpenSea Accept When Purchasing NFTs?
When you take into account the thousands of various cryptocurrencies that are available, purchasing NFTs might get complicated. The same NFT will probably be priced in terms of multiple currencies, including ETH, DAI, and USD, further complicating matters.
ETH is the most often utilized base currency for buying and selling NFTs. It is also the main form of payment on OpenSea. You should be aware that OpenSea utilizes WETH, a wrapped variant of ETH (wrapped ETH).
So be sure to convert some ETH to WITH before placing a bid on an NFT auction. The conversion can be done quickly in your OpenSea account. Once there, you can select wrap for the designated amount by clicking the dropdown. You will need a small amount of ETH to complete the task in order to pay for gas, but once it is over, you are prepared to submit a bid on OpenSea.
