OpenSea is an American online non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. OpenSea headquarter is located in New York City. The company was founded by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah in 2017. As the first marketplace, learn how to use OpenSea to get the most out of your NFTS with this OpenSea for Beginners Guide.
What is OpenSea?
OpenSea is the first and largest NFTS NFT marketplace. It provides NFTs in all categories, including digital art, collectibles, sports, and virtual worlds. It enables consumers to freely trade their items, creators to release new digital works, and developers to create rich, integrated marketplaces for their digital goods.
OpenSea now supports cross-blockchain compatibility with Ethereum, Polygon, Klaytn, Solana, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, and BNB blockchains. It also has a gas-free marketplace where you can buy, sell, and create NFTs without paying any blockchain fees.
Following a surge in interest in non-fungible tokens, the company’s revenue in 2021 reached $95 million in February and $2.75 billion in September. The company was valued at $13.3 billion in January 2022 and was described as the largest non-fungible token marketplace.
Why OpenSea is the Best
According to this OpenSea for Beginners guide, OpenSea is a user-friendly NFT platform with an intelligent and intuitive user interface that is suitable for both beginners and experts. In just a few steps, you can create an account and begin browsing their massive selection of NFTs. They have a wide variety of NFTs from the world’s most talented artists and influencers.
The platform provides a comprehensive set of tools for minting NFTs. There is a free minting feature known as “lazy minting” that reduces the onerous gas fees that transactions can incur.
The variety on OpenSea is unparalleled. It not only provides a diverse range of NFTs, but it also supports multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Klaytn, Solana, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, and BNB. Finally, OpenSea is constantly innovating and adding new features to its platform to give users the best experience possible.
How OpenSea Works
OpenSea takes pride in being the first and largest NFT platform, offering critical NFT services. There was no platform for users to easily trade different NFTs prior to its creation in 2017. OpenSea was developed to allow users to trade crypto collectibles and other NFTs with one another.
The desktop and mobile dashboards open with two options: investigate NFTs or create a new crypto wallet. Alternatively, if you already have a cryptocurrency wallet, you can connect it to the platform. You can search through over 2 million NFT collections and create your own.
OpenSea supports a wide range of NFTs, including art, music, collectibles, virtual lands, sports assets, and domain names, as well as utility NFTs such as membership passes.
You can quickly identify the top and most fashionable collections in each category. Users can filter the results by time frame, such as 24 hours, seven days, 30 days, or all-time. There’s also the option to choose a specific blockchain to investigate.
According to this OpenSea for Beginners guide, how the OpenSea algorithm works is that they’re built to match buyers and sellers to make a trade and after the successful trade, OpenSea then makes money by charging a service fee of 2.5%.
OpenSea for Beginners: How to use OpenSea
According to this OpenSea for Beginners guide, the OpenSea marketplace has an intuitive and user-friendly user interface that makes it simple to use and navigate. To begin, connect a crypto wallet to OpenSea in order to initiate a transaction. Your wallet is how you interact with the blockchain to send or receive payments. Because OpenSea is noncustodial, when you connect your wallet to the platform, your NFTs are sent to your wallet address rather than being stored on the platform.
How to Create an NFT on OpenSea
You can quickly create an NFT with OpenSea’s intelligent and intuitive UI. You simply need to determine the purpose and genre of your collection, create a crypto wallet, select a blockchain, and list your NFT (s). Follow the detailed guide below to learn how to create your first OpenSea NFT.
Step 1
First off, visit OpenSea. Then you’ll need to create a collection.
Step 2
Once you’ve done that, click on the Create tab in the top right corner of the OpenSea website.
Step 3
Now, you’ll be taken to the NFT item creation page where you can upload the file of your NFT and give it a name and a description. You can also add an external link to your website or social media accounts.
Step 4
You can add the NFT to an existing collection or add Properties, Levels, and Stats. You also have the opportunity to add Unlockable Content which is content that can only be revealed by the owner of the item.
Step 5
Finally, we’ll ask you to list the supply, which is the number of items that will be created, and the blockchain you’ll be creating the NFT on. This defaults to Ethereum, but you can also choose to mint on Polygon. Once you’re done, just click Create!
Note: Once completed, you’ll see a pop-up that indicates your NFT has been created.
How OpenSea Auctions Work
OpenSea provides a marketplace where non-fungible tokens can be sold either directly at a fixed price or through an auction. An NFT Auction is a type of sale in which the seller establishes a minimum price and a time frame. Bids for the auction can then be submitted by interested buyers.
On OpenSea, there are two types of auctions. You have the option of selling to the highest bidder or selling at a declining price.
Sell to the Highest Bidder
If a Sell to highest bidder auction finishes above 1 ETH, OpenSea will complete this transaction automatically, with OpenSea paying the gas fee in the process. However, if the auction ends below 1 ETH, it is up to the seller to accept the highest bid.
Bidding in this type of auction is similar to making an offer on a fixed-price listing. The seller may accept it at any time, but the buyer must use WETH to create a bid.
Sell with Declining price
These are similar to fixed-price listings, but the price decreases over time. You can buy or make an offer in the listed currency at any time.
OpenSea for Beginners: OpenSea Compatible Blockchains
According to the OpenSea website, It says its goal is to connect people with NFTs across every chain possible. That said the platform now offers cross-chain compatibility across a pool of blockchains. Wondering which Blockchain networks OpenSea supports let’s take a look.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum, A decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality launched in 2015. The Ethereum Blockchain uses ETH which is its native currency to interact with the platform. Ethereum uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, eliminating the need for energy-intensive mining and instead securing the network using staked ETH.
LEARN MORE: WHAT IS ETHEREUM IN BLOCKCHAIN? A COMPLETE GUIDE!
ETH is used to pay gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain. OpenSea has no say in setting gas fees – they are determined by network capacity and demand and fluctuate according to network usage.
Solana (SOL)
Solana is a low-cost, high-speed blockchain with a low environmental impact. Solana’s performance is powered by a single global state that can process tens of thousands of smart contracts at once, as well as Proof of History, a distributed clock that enables low-latency, sub-second finality across the global state.
Klaytn (KLAY)
Klaytn’s native token, KLAY, is supported and can be used to pay transaction fees on OpenSea.
Klaytn is an open-source public blockchain, built to be the fundamental trust layer for the metaverse, respecting and empowering the participation and contribution of its community and stakeholders. Users can use the Kaikas wallet browser extension or MetaMask to buy and sell Klaytn NFTs on OpenSea.
Polygon (MATIC)
Polygon is a blockchain that is EVM-compatible and offers scalable, secure, and instant transactions. Polygon is an Ethereum network layer 2 scaling solution. As one of the first Ethereum scaling solutions, cryptocurrencies must be “bridged” from Ethereum’s blockchain to Polygon.
Arbitrum (Arbi ETH)
Arbitrum is a layer 2 solution designed to improve the capabilities of Ethereum smart contracts — boosting their speed and scalability while adding additional privacy features to boot.
The platform is designed to allow developers to easily run unmodified Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) contracts and Ethereum transactions on a second layer, while still benefiting from Ethereum’s excellent security.
Optimism (OP)
Optimism (OP) is a layer-two blockchain on top of Ethereum. Optimism benefits from the security of the Ethereum mainnet and helps scale the Ethereum ecosystem by using optimistic rollups. That means transactions are trustlessly recorded on Optimism but ultimately secured on Ethereum.
Optimism is one of the most significant scaling solutions for Ethereum with over $500 million in TVL. It is home to 97 protocols, the biggest being Synthetix (SNX), a derivatives exchange, Uniswap (UNI), a DEX, and Velodrome (VELO), an AMM. Users can begin their journey on Optimism by adding the chain on their Metamask and bridging tokens like ETH.
BNB Chain (BNB)
BNB stands for “Build and Build,” encapsulating their mission to build the infrastructure that powers the world’s parallel virtual ecosystem. The BNB Chain is comprised of two blockchains which include the Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain. These chains are built with support for NFTs.
BNB Smart Chain is a blockchain that runs in parallel to the Beacon Chain, has smart contract functionality, and is EVM-compatible. BNB Smart Chain relies on a system of 21 active validators with Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus that can support short block time and lower fees.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Avalanche is an open-source platform for launching decentralized finance apps and enterprise blockchain deployments in a single, interoperable, and highly scalable ecosystem. Avalanche employs Proof-of-Stake, which allows tens of thousands of validators to have a direct say in the system while consuming very little energy.
The Avalanche C-Chain, which is used for smart contracts and is compatible with Ethereum, is supported by OpenSea.
OpenSea Compatible Wallets
OpenSea for Beginners guide shows that OpenSea has support for many crypto wallets. Currently, OpenSea doesn’t support the use of multi-signature wallets (wallets that require two or more private keys to sign and send a transaction).
Wondering which wallet to use with OpenSea? Well, this OpenSea for Beginners guide displays OpenSea supported list of wallets:
- Authereum
- Bitkeep
- Bitski
- Coinbase Wallet
- Core
- Dapper
- Fortmatic/Magic
- Glow
- Kaikas
- Ledger Live
- MetaMask
- Opera Touch
- Phantom
- Portis
- Solflare
- Trust Wallet
- WalletConnect
OpenSea for Beginners: OpenSea vs Rarible
With this OpenSea for Beginners guide OpenSea is compared to Rarible.
OpenSea
In 2017, Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah founded OpenSea with its headquarters in New York. OpenSea is an NFT marketplace where users may purchase and trade non-fungible tokens. Currently, it serves as a marketplace for a wide range of digital goods, such as music, gaming items, domain names, and artwork. You need to have an Ethereum wallet like Metamask in order to purchase and sell NFTs on OpenSea because it is built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Rarible
Rarible is a company founded by Alex Salnikov and Alexei Falin and based in New York. In 2020, Rarible raised its first round of funding from the New York-based venture capital firm CoinFund, which has been one of the firms that are most confident about the growth of NFTs.
Rarible is a multi-chain platform where you can buy, sell, and create non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It is one of the main NFT marketplaces and is based on the Rarible Protocol, an open-source multichain, community-governed NFT protocol.
As 2021 was a breakout year for NFTs, Rarible grew a lot and reached, according to their official Medium, more than 2 million active users per month. By July 2022, the marketplace was integrated with Ethereum, Polygon, Flow, Tezos, and Solana. The website offers a large selection of tokens divided into several categories, including DeFi, art, photography, gaming, metaverses, music, and domains.