Presentation of the OpeanSea marketplace
Established in 2017, OpenSea is a decentralized marketplace developed on Ethereum that enables anyone to buy, sell and create NFTs (non-fungible tokens). One of the first NFT collections issued on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, Crypto Kitties, was hosted on this platform. To this day, OpenSea is used by more than 20 million active users coming from all parts of the world, and it welcomes each week thousands of new NFT collections.
In addition, the marketplace recently reached the milestone of 10 billion dollars in terms of volume, positioning itself as the number one platform, way ahead of competitors.
In this article, we will show you all the functions available on OpenSea and explain in detail how to buy, sell and create your NFTs.
Pros and cons for the OpenSea marketplace
Pros :
- Easy to use ;
- Anyone has access to it ;
- Possibility to create and put for sale your own NFT ;
- Low service fee (2.5%).
Cons :
- Gas fees.
How to use the OpenSea platform
We will show you how to buy, sell and create your NFT on the OpenSea platform. First of all, make sure you have a wallet in order to fully benefit from the platform.
As of now, OpenSea accepts 13 wallets, including Metamask and Coinbase Wallet which are the most popular for computers, or Trust Wallet for smartphones.
How to buy an NFT on OpenSea
First, go to the OpenSea platform by clicking here. Once you’re in the marketplace, select a wallet by clicking on the tab that represents a wallet, located in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
Then, click on the “Explore” tab and type the name of a collection in the search bar. In case you’re not looking for any specific collection, you can just visit the “Explore” page, where you’ll find thousands of NFTs coming from different NFT collections.
If you want to refine your search, you can also filter the NFT / collections by selecting various search criteria, such as:
- Sales status (auctions, direct purchases, offers…)
- Price level (minimum and maximum) as well as the currency (USD or ETH)
- The blockchain used by the NFT (Ethereum, Polygon or Klaytn)
- The NFT’s category (Game, Art, Music…)
- The different attributes of a particular NFT (in case of a collection)
For example, let’s choose an NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection which, on OpenSea, is the second NFT collection with the highest Floor Price, just behind Crypto Punks. These NFTs are, impressively, trading at a minimum of 52 ETH (~220 000 dollars).
We now have two possibilities: buy the NFT or make an offer to the seller of this NFT. If you want to make an offer, click on “Make Offer” and indicate the price in WETH (Wrapped ETH), DAI, or USDC. Make sure you have enough funds to make the offer. Finally, choose the date and expiration of your offer and click again on “Make Offer“.
However, if you want to acquire immediately the NFT, click on “Buy Now“. You will then need to confirm your purchase by clicking on “Confirm Checkout“. Following that, a secondary tab from your wallet will pop up (in our case Metamask), where you will need to sign the transaction.
Finally, you will need to pay the gas fees in order to confirm, once and for all, your transaction.
How to sell an NFT on OpenSea
Now that you know how to buy an NFT, we are going to show you how to sell it. First, click on your profile logo in the top right-hand corner of the page in order to go to your OpenSea profile. Here is where you’ll see all the NFTs that you own.
Next, select the NFT that you want to put up for sale. For this example, we chose an NFT from the “Space Punk Club“. Once that’s done, just click on “Sell“. Note that you can also click on “…” located right under the image and then on “Sell“, it’s up to you.
Once you’re on the page, start by choosing between a Timed Auction and a Fixed Price. Whatever you decide, you will then need to indicate the sales price of your NFT with the cryptocurrency of your choice (ETH / wETH are recommended). Then, define the duration of the sale following which your NFT is removed.
In case of a sale at a fixed price, you have the possibility to tick two additional options: “Sell as a bundle” and “Reserve for specific buyer“. Note that a 2.5% service fee will be applied, in addition to the “Creator Royalty” predefined by the creators of the NFT collection (7.5% in our case).
Finally, click on “Complete Listing“, confirm the transaction by paying the Ethereum (ETH) gas fees, and approve the transaction on the OpenSea platform.
How to create an NFT on OpenSea
As explained previously, the OpenSea platform gives you the possibility to create your own NFT, very easily and very quickly. To do that, start by clicking on the “Create” tab in the top right of the page.
Now, you must indicate a certain amount of information:
- The image of your NFT
- The name of your NFT
- Add a description
- Add an external link (website…)
- Define attributes for your NFT (outfit, mouth, background…)
- The blockchain (Ethereum or Polygon)
Once you’ve finished entering all the required information, click on the “Create” tab. Congratulations, your NFT has been successfully created.
Your NFT is now located on your profile page, where you can modify it, but also put it up for sale.
Conclusion – Our thoughts on OpenSea
OpenSea is without any doubt the most popular NFT marketplace in the world with, let us remind you, close to 20 million active users. These figures demonstrate once more the extraordinary rise of the NFT market and the significance it now has in the world.
The OpenSea platform managed to seize this opportunity and establish itself, in just a few years, as the top actor in this market which is generating hundreds of billions of dollars. The platform is highly intuitive and allows anyone to buy, sell and create their own NFT.
However, OpenSea is exposed to the gas fees enforced by the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain which are, for the majority of the users, very inconvenient. Fees that, in many cases, exceed the sales price of the NFT. Aside from that inconvenience, for which OpenSea is powerless, the marketplace is well-positioned to accelerate its dominance and widen the gap with its competitors.
