Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs have become increasingly popular in the community, especially young people. Speaking of NFT, it's incomplete if you don't
Scienelovers - Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs have become increasingly popular in the community, especially young people. Speaking of NFT, it's incomplete if you don't know NFT's first marketplace, OpenSea.
According to the official website, OpenSea is a peer-to-peer marketplace for NFT, Be-emers.
Not only the first, OpenSea also claims its platform is the largest in the world as an NFT marketplace.
It is recorded that there are already more than 300 thousand users with more than 34 million NFT in the OpenSea marketplace. In fact, the transaction volume on OpenSea reached more than US$4 billion.
OpenSea: Inspired by CryptoKitties
In 2017, CryptoKitties captured the world's attention as a decentralized application built on blockchain. However, at that time CryptoKitties was targeted at the mainstream audience.
Even so, it is undeniable that the presence of CryptoKitties still feels common to most people.
Blockchain that was previously not owned by a single party has become visible anywhere, openly exchanged, and truly owned in a way that was previously impossible in the digital world.
This apparently inspired Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah. Starting from their joining the CryptoKitties early user community on Discord, quoted from the official OpenSea website, the two then ventured to establish a beta version of OpenSea in December 2017!
The presence of OpenSea is still in the same year as CryptoKitties. However, OpenSea is here as the first open marketplace for any tokens that were previously non-exchangeable on the Ethereum blockchain.
Does OpenSea Only Use ETH?
The majority of NFT trades on OpenSea are known to use ETH, Be-emers. Even so, OpenSea mentions, the core currencies on their platform include Ethereum (ETH)/WETH, USDC, and DAI.
In fact, they have more than 150 other payment tokens available such as $UNI and $WHALE. However, it is still impossible for OpenSea to use non-crypto currencies like USD and Euros.
Basically, Ether or ETH is the original cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain. ETH is used to pay transaction fees (gas fees) on the Ethereum blockchain.
Well, in this case, OpenSea stated that it had no role in determining the gas fee. You see, gas fees are determined by supply/demand and fluctuate according to network usage.
ETH and WETH are the exact same value. Both of them can be exchanged directly on your OpenSea profile. Meanwhile, you can also add ETH by going to the wallet icon and pressing “Add Funds.”
Where Does OpenSea Profit From?
A creator can benefit from his work such as designs, illustrations, music, and so on through the sale of NFT.
The more popular a work is, the greater the profit a creator will get.
That's from a creator's point of view, so the question is: where can a marketplace like OpenSea make a profit?
As an NFT marketplace, OpenSea relies on fees collected from successful transactions to make money. You see, every creator who sells his work on OpenSea, will be charged a seller fee of 2.5 percent.
On its official website, OpenSea states that 2.5 percent of each sale will go to OpenSea as compensation for services provided to creators.
That means, if you manage to sell 100 ETH worth of NFT works, you will only save 97.5 ETH. Meanwhile, OpenSea will get 2.5 ETH from the sale.
Meanwhile, for buyers of NFT works, OpenSea does not impose any additional fees or commissions.
Just for the record, NFT is a digital certificate of ownership that cannot be duplicated. So, if you buy someone's NFT work, you only have the digital ownership rights, not the whole work.
OpenSea Funding and Angle Investors
From angle.co data, OpenSea has received initial funding of US$ 2 million in July 2019. In the same year, in November 2019, OpenSea again received initial funding of US$ 2.1 million.
Interestingly, in March 2021, OpenSea had just secured Series A funding of US$ 23 million. The funding was led by venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z.
Meanwhile, a number of angle investors involved in OpenSea's funding include Collin Evans, Ben Silbermann, Balaji Srinivasan, Tim Ferriss, Alexis Ohanian, and Mark Cuban.
How about you, are you more interested in buying and selling NFT on OpenSea or other marketplaces?
