Almost every investor would have noticed the phenomenon of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that made a big impact in the global cryptocurrency market recently. Lots of mainstream financial institutions and media agencies too covered it leading to a huge surge in the value of these unique crypto collectibles and greater trading by investors.
However, the real reason for the massive success of NFTs has to go to the various NFT marketplaces that handle the execution of trades (buying and selling) and the processing of peer-to-peer transactions.
What is an NFT Marketplace?
It acts as a buying and selling platform for different crypto collectibles like artwork, games, domain names, metaverses, photographs, software licenses, sports goods and trading cards.
The prospective buyers and sellers have to integrate their compatible digital wallets to purchase the various NFTs.
An NFT Marketplace conducts auctions for sale and buyers will share information about the lowest and highest price that they are offering to pay for getting ownership of the digital collectibles.
How an NFT Marketplace can lead to greater growth opportunities for entrepreneurs?
- Numerous streams of revenue— through listing fees from content creators, a commission from the sale of each NFT depending on the final price, transaction processing charges, publishing targeted advertisements and gas fees for maintaining the effectiveness of the blockchain network.
- The attraction of more institutional crypto investors — by listing the NFTs sold by celebrities.
- Currently, there are a whopping 611,622 NFTs — with a trading volume of $80.69 million according to data from coinranking.com. Hence, entrepreneurs cannot afford to miss this profitable opportunity since there is a huge market to purchase crypto collectibles.
- Apart from better business prospects— NFT marketplaces can also be utilized to conduct fundraising campaigns for supporting different social causes and charities.
How does an NFT Marketplace function?
- The interested buyers of crypto collectibles register on the NFT selling platform by submitting the required information.
- The artists and content creators establish a profile on the NFT marketplace.
- The developers of digital collectibles will list their different NFTs for sale by sharing details like the quantity of crypto collectibles, minimum price, accepted payment methods and the deadline till which bidding is accepted.
- The prospective NFTs start bidding for the unique cryptographic tokens after viewing their price. The artist or content creator will see all the available bids and choose the best offer that suits their business objectives.
- The buyers make the required payment for the crypto collectibles through various digital wallets like Coinbase Wallet, Fortmatic, MetaMask, MyEtherWallet, Portis, Torus, and WalletConnect.
- The specific NFT is transferred to the buyers after the NFT seller received the payment
- The NFT trading deal gets concluded successfully on the marketplace.
The eye-catching Features of an NFT Marketplace
- An advanced search and filter option — It is useful for NFT buyers to find their desired crypto collectible by searching it based on price, availability, and the name of the content creator.
- Compliance with ERC-721 and ERC-1155 token standards — The NFT marketplace ensures end-to-end compliance with the guidelines ofERC-72 and ERC-1155 related to token ownership and transfer of crypto tokens.
- A bounty program — Bounties in the form of gifts and rewards are offered to those people who match the interested NFT buyers and sellers. The bounties can be easily shared in the form of referral links on the leading online cryptocurrency forums and social media platforms.
- Sharing of real-time information — Alerts are sent to the cryptocurrency investors about the Hot Bids, Hot Collections, changes in prices of NFTs, and reminders for bidding.
- Access to an exclusive governance token — The NFT investors can utilize the governance token for getting decision-making powers and voting rights related to the future growth and development of the crypto collectible selling platform.
- Provision of 24×7 technical support — Investors can quickly sort out issues related to buying and selling of NFTs by reaching out to the dedicated Help Centre. Round-the-clock support is available in chat, Discord, email, and phone.
Different benefits offered by an NFT Marketplace
- Easy monetization of content— by the content creators as they need not depend on middlemen nor be under the control of any powerful technology companies.
- Greater return on investment — as some NFTs can fetch millions of dollars in sales depending on the extent of demand from investors. The value rises exponentially due to the scarcity of crypto-collectibles (limited supply).
- Instant verification of proof of ownership — for the NFT buyers through the robust smart contracts and blockchain networks.
- Quick scalability of the NFT marketplace — for the entrepreneursby adding more digital collectibles and attracting interested cryptocurrency investors from various countries.
- A high level of safety — by taking adequate measures to prevent copyright infringement related to digital assets and piracy of content.
What are some well-known NFT marketplaces in the Crypto Industry?
OpenSea
It raised $23 million in funds from Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm recently. OpenSea offers the sale of different digital artwork and virtual world assets to investors. The OpenSea NFT marketplace offers real-time market data for its content creators (affiliates).
Rarible
The Rarible NFT marketplace was established on the Ethereum blockchain network. It offers investors access to the RARI governance token (RGT) that includes voting rights. Rarible amassed $1.75 million in funds in February this year. Find jobs at Rarible with Niftyjobs.com
NBA Top Shot
It offers licensed crypto collectibles for sales to millions of sports fans across the globe. The buyers can purchase packs of cards, digital versions of top sporting moments, and exclusive collections of players and teams. Dapper Labs, which manages NBA Top Shot, raised more than $7.5 billion in fresh funding recently.
CryptoPunks
It offers buyers to purchase 10000 unique crypto collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain network through ETH-compatible digital wallets. Each NFT is a 24×24 pixel image. CryptoPunks is fully compliant with the ERC-721 token standard.