NFT Guide: What is OpenSea?
This article is a guide to OpenSea, a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs. It will explain what is OpenSea and also guide you in how to use different functions on the website.
đ Introducing OpenSea
OpenSea is a decentralized peer-to-peer market for the purchase, sale, and transaction of rare digital goods, from game items to collectibles and artworks, which are based on non-fungible token (NFT) technology and on the blockchain Ethereum run. In fact, OpenSea ranks itself as the largest digital product market because it covers a wide range of accessible products in more than 200 categories and claims to have the most effective prices for brand new and new products. OpenSea supports transactions of digital art, decentralized domain names, transaction cards, virtual worlds, digital collectibles, sports, and practical NFTs.
Itâs the preferred platform for some of the most popular NFT projects, such as Cryptopunks, Axie Infinity, Gods Unchained, CryptoKitties, SuperRare, etc. In particular, they allow anyone to trade NFTs in the global market and have no custody rights for the listed items. Instead, the market allows transactions through smart contracts, and users store their items in the wallet of their choice. This means you truly own your own NFT, able to view it on their website.
Additionally, users can list their items on OpenSea, regardless of whether they are listed in other markets as well, as long as they are still in their wallets. OpenSea only provides users with an open trading platform and only charges 2.5% of the purchase price for each NFT sold. The platform boasts of being the lowest in the field in April 2021. Finally, ETH is the default cryptocurrency for purchases, but OpenSea accepts more than 200 payment options, including DAI, USDC, REVV, SAND, MANA, BTC, MEME, etc.
đ Why People Use It
OpenSea has raised more than $4 million USD in donations, most recently US$2.1 million, led by MetaMask's Animoca Brands, Stanford StartX, and David Pazdan. The previous rounds were supported by YCombinator, Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures, 1Confirmation, Blockstack, and Blockchain Capital. OpenSea has the lowest fees in the NFT field. They charge 2.5% of the sales price. Compared with other platforms up to 7.5%, this fee is lower. In addition, buyers do not charge a service fee, while others charge a fee that is 3% higher than the selling price. Also, as we all know, traditional auction sites charge up to 12% of the profits.
OpenSea has over 200 payment methods to choose from. You can exchange the accepted cryptocurrency at the time of sale, including stablecoins. As mentioned above, ETH is the default and OpenSea converts ETH to wETH, but other tokens can also be used: DAI and USDC stablecoins, wBTC, MANA, REVV, memes, whales. It is also possible to add custom ERC20 tokens as an alternative payment option. The OpenSea team works hard to prevent its users from being misled. Known customers with a good track record will have a blue checkmark next to their favorites.
They also use the creator's address posted above the project description to add a layer of verification. Users can also flag fake and inappropriate NFTs. When the highest bidder obtains an NFT at a UK auction, OpenSea also offers transactions without gas. Neither the buyer nor the seller needs to pay for the gas to execute these transactions, although one has to wonder how long this situation will last due to the current expensive gas costs on Ethereum.
đ How Do You Use OpenSea?
To start using OpenSea, simply connect to a Web3 wallet (such as MetaMask) and go to the "Browse" tab. The app will automatically search your wallet for all the collectibles you own and the assets you wish to purchase items from the market (e.g. Ether). When interacting with the listed items, the user can choose to enter an offer (even if the vendor hasnât set a price) or already sold, like eBayâs "Buy Now" feature.
When publishing a list, pay attention to the assets (ETH, DAI, etc.) that the list publishes, as it may vary from one article to another. After placing the inventory, if the user purchases successfully, they will receive an email. On the item sale page, simply click on "Account" in the upper right corner, then click on "My Profile'' and then select the item you want to sell.
Here you will choose the value and duration of the sale, as well as the form of quotation. The listing is free. If the product is sold successfully, OpenSea will charge a final price of 2.5%. If you like to collect and want to speculate with NFTs, OpenSea will be a great platform for you. Buying costs usually costs Ethereum. Before you can offer anything, you must first convert your ETH to wrapped ETH (wETH). The basic principle of packing ETH is due to interoperability issues.
Now wETH is an ERC20 token pegged to ETH @ a 1:1 ratio. The good news is that you don't have to go to a centralized or decentralized exchange to convert between ETH and wETH. You will be able to do this in OpenSea. After getting wETH, you can choose NFT and bid. You will follow the auction, just like on eBay, if you are the highest bidder at the end of the auction, you will get an NFT. OpenSea will process transactions from here and transfer funds and NFT. If you find the email in your account settings, OpenSea will notify you that you have just won the auction.
â Conclusion
When it comes to the rise of NFT collectors, it is no wonder that many secondary markets have emerged to exchange these unique assets. For those who are not familiar with non-fungible tokens (also known as NFTs), they are unique to each other due to special characteristics or identifiers that distinguish them from other tokens in similar collections.
Especially in DeFi, we have seen that NFTs play a role in the tokenization of assets and contracts, all of which play a greater role in the concept of composability, or different products interact with each other to form a bigger ecosystem. In this overview, we delve into OpenSea and the industry-leading Ethereum-based NFT decentralized exchange (DEX). NFT use cases are growing and seem to be limited only by imagination.
So far, the most concerning is the tokenized assets of in-game items, artworks, collectibles, virtual worlds, and real worlds. But more will definitely happen, especially as the industry becomes even more integrated with decentralized finance (DeFi). More integration means more NFT asset classes. In short, with all the concerns and new projects coming to the NFT ecosystem, 2021 is definitely going to turn out to be a critical year. Naturally, major NFT markets such as OpenSea, Raible, and Nifty Gateway (acquisition of the Winklevoss twins) are expected to prosper. Thank you.
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