OpenSea Review
Everything You Need To Know
What is OpenSea?
OpenSea is the largest peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are unique digital assets stored on a blockchain. OpenSea was founded in 2017 and is based on the Ethereum blockchain.
OpenSea allows users to create, buy, and sell a wide range of NFTs, including digital art, collectibles, gaming items, domain names, and more. The platform provides an easy-to-use interface for both creators and collectors to showcase and discover new NFTs, and it facilitates secure and transparent transactions between buyers and sellers.
As an open marketplace, OpenSea is not limited to any particular category of NFTs, and it is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. With a rapidly growing community of creators and collectors, OpenSea is becoming a hub for the emerging NFT ecosystem and is helping to drive innovation in the blockchain space.
NFT sales exploded in 2021. According to reports, sales went from $95 million to $25 billion in 2021. Non-fungible tokens were truly in vogue. And, OpenSea was at the heart of the phenomenon throughout, as the world’s largest NFT marketplace.
OpenSea didn’t just jump on the bandwagon. It was among the few that spotted the trend. The platform was started in 2017. It sold NFTs worth $20 billion. More than one million traders have been involved with the platform.
In this review, we will look objectively at the pros and cons of the platform. Our OpenSea review should help you better understand it, know how you could profit from NFTs, and anticipate the future of the crypto space.
Extensive selection of NFTs
The most impressive thing about OpenSea is its NFT selection. It has millions of NFTs available, and it regularly has new drops and collections to check out. There’s also a lot of variety in what this marketplace offers. You can find everything from fresh pieces by new artists to famous NFT collections, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Great for NFT minting
If you want to create NFTs, OpenSea has an easy minting process. The marketplace’s popularity could also help get more eyeballs on your NFT collection. If you’re trying to keep fees to a minimum, you can use the OpenSea Collection Manager to mint an NFT collection without any upfront gas costs. You can also set a creator fee of up to 10% that you receive every time an NFT you created is sold.
User-friendly design
NFT marketplaces can be hit or miss in terms of design. OpenSea does well in this area, as it has a quality layout and is easy to navigate. The home page introduces you to the marketplace and some notable pieces, and it doesn’t take long to learn how to browse all the NFTs that OpenSea offers.
Reasonable fees
OpenSea keeps fees simple by taking a 2.5% cut of every sale, paid by the seller. That’s in line with or better than what many of the best NFT marketplaces charge, as there are competitors with fees of 5% or more.
Educational content
The OpenSea blog is a good source of educational content on NFTs. If you’re a beginner, you’ll find articles on how to buy NFTs and sell them, keeping yourself safe from scams, and other important topics. The blog also includes news and guest posts from artists behind different collections.
Multiple blockchain and payment options
While some marketplaces only use one network (most often the Ethereum blockchain), OpenSea has cross-blockchain support, so users can buy and sell on four different blockchains. It also accepts multiple types of cryptocurrency as payment.
Large amount of plagiarized content and spam
Perhaps the biggest problem on the OpenSea NFT marketplace is that there’s so much stolen content and spam. In January 2022, OpenSea reported that over 80% of the items created using its free minting tool were plagiarized works, fake collections, or spam. It even briefly put a limit on that free minting tool, but then reversed that decision due to user backlash.
OpenSea allows users to report stolen content and tries to remove it as quickly as possible. In some ways, it’s a victim of its own success, as its popularity has attracted scammers. Regardless, you need to be more careful about what you buy on OpenSea compared to marketplaces with more carefully curated collections.
Frequent scams
Since it’s the largest NFT platform, OpenSea is also a popular target for scammers. There have been numerous attacks, including a phishing attack in February 2022 that resulted in hundreds of stolen NFTs. Any NFTs you buy or create will be stored in your own wallet, so they can’t be stolen directly off the OpenSea platform. But it’s important to watch out for phishing scams due to how common they are.
Lack of trustworthiness due to insider trading
OpenSea went through a major scandal in September 2021. Several OpenSea users noticed a wallet belonging to Nate Chastain, at the time the marketplace’s product head, often purchased NFTs before they appeared on the front page. The wallet then sold those pieces after the price increased.
It was effectively a version of insider trading with NFTs. Chastain resigned, and OpenSea implemented new policies, including one prohibiting employees from using insider information when buying and selling NFTs. While OpenSea has aimed to fix the issue, it’s still a mark against its reputation that could take some time to repair.
Alternatives to consider
If you want to browse curated collections and verified NFTs: Nifty Gateway helps you avoid the risk of buying a plagiarized piece. It offers curated drops, which are hand-selected collections by popular digital artists. This marketplace also has verified drops, which aren’t curated but are verified by the Nifty Gateway team to ensure they’re not stolen.
If you’re looking for a more exclusive digital art platform: Foundation is a platform designed to connect creators and collectors of digital art. Creators must receive an invitation from the community first to mint and sell NFTs. That makes Foundation more selective than your typical marketplace and results in a higher quality standard.
Platform features
The OpenSea marketplace is designed for creators to launch digital works and for consumers to trade freely. Here’s a breakdown of exactly how it works.
Services
On OpenSea, you can buy, mint, and sell NFTs. It offers several different search options you can use to browse NFTs, including filtering by category, collection, or price. You can also create your own NFTs, mint NFTs without gas fees, and set creator fees to earn revenue every time your NFT is sold.
Blockchains
OpenSea supports the Ethereum, Polygon, Klatyn, and Solana blockchains. Ethereum is the most widely used for NFTs, but each blockchain has its own unique advantages, so it’s nice for creators to have multiple options available.
Supported wallets
OpenSea supports the following NFT wallets:
- Metamask
- Coinbase Wallet
- Trust Wallet
- Portis
- Fortmatic/Magic
- Venly
- Authereum
- Bitski
- Dapper
- Kaikas
- OperaTouch
- Phantom
- Glow
It also lets you use the WalletConnect protocol. If you choose this option, you can connect any NFT wallet supported by WalletConnect.
Payment methods
Payments on OpenSea are made in cryptocurrency. The core cryptocurrencies the platform accepts are Ethereum, WETH, Solana, USD Coin, and Dai.
It’s not possible to pay using fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar. OpenSea provides the option to buy cryptocurrency with a card payment through MoonPay. We recommend buying on one of the top crypto exchanges, though, because fees on MoonPay are expensive.
Fees
OpenSea has a straightforward fee model and takes 2.5% of every transaction. This fee is deducted from the NFT’s sale price.
When you create an NFT on OpenSea, you can set creator fees of up to 10%. You’ll receive the creator fee on every sale of that NFT. You can change the percentage at any time.