In December 2021, the ‘The Merge’ from the artist Pak was sold for $91.03 million. The sale broke the record for the most expensive art sold by a living artist. But unlike other expensive artworks, ‘The Merge’ had a difference. It was digital art. It was sold online and was collectively brought by 28,000 people across the globe.
Pak’s expensive art is an NFT. NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are virtual tokens certifying a digital asset’s ownership. The record of this ownership is recorded in the blockchain permanently. So anyone can check and verify it. And unlike other tokens, NFTs are fungible. This means the certificate is unique and nobody can reproduce it.
If you have trouble understanding this, consider the following example. Imagine you buy the NFT of a digital illustration. The proof of your purchase is immediately recorded in the blockchain. Anyone who looks the NFT up will understand that you own the artwork.
So for the first time in history, digital content creators and customers can track and verify who owns a digital asset. Because of the non-fungibility aspect of NFTs, today there are NFTs for all types of digital assets. Like illustrations, 3D models, videos, games, and even memes.
As a result, many speculate NFTs to become a big thing in the future. So for both personal and business reasons people are buying NFTs. And most of these NFT sales happen in NFT marketplaces.
NFT marketplaces are online stores for NFTs. In these stores, you can buy and sell NFTs. Every NFT marketplace, however, is unique. Some top NFT marketplaces showcase a variety of types of content. Others feature only specific types of content.
Regardless of the form of content, all NFT marketplaces generate revenue from the buyer and/or seller fees. For every sale within the platform. The platform takes a percentage cut (This percentage, however, varies from platform to platform. For instance, some platforms take a 5% cut, while other platforms take a 10% cut.)
OpenSea hosts the largest collection of NFTs and is the world’s leading NFT marketplace. You can create an account and start selling or buying NFTs within a short time.
You can buy and sell art, music, domain names, utility NFTs, and a variety of other forms of content.
Rarible is an NFT platform favored by top artists and celebrities including Lindsay Lohan and Floyd Mayweather, and brands like Twitter, Taco Bell, etc., to sell their NFTs.
A feature that sets Rarible apart is that Rarible uses its own virtual tokens, called RARI coins for all transactions. It is also one of the few NFT marketplaces that support multiple blockchains, with its support for both Ethereum and Flow. Rarible hosts a variety of digital content including digital artworks, memes, and even virtual land.
Crypto Punks are one of the reasons for the ‘2021 NFT Craze.’ Crypto Punks sold NFTs called Crypto Punks. Each Crypto Punk is unique with its own attributes and values. And initially, every one of these Crypto Punks was given for free to the public.
But over time, their prices rose. Currently, some of them are valued in millions (one Crypto Punk was sold for nearly $5 million in 2021.)
NBA Topshot is an NFT marketplace where you can buy NBA and WNBA based NFTs. These NFTs include cards of various top NBA and WNBA players and Moments which are crucial gameplay moments from different NBA and WNBA games.
NBA Topshot is created by Dapperlabs, the company behind Crypto Kitties. You have two options to buy NFTs in NBA Topshot. One, you can buy the NFTs directly as they are released. Two, you can buy the NFTs brought by other users, when these users sell them within Topshot’s NFT marketplace.
SuperRare is a marketplace for NFT art enthusiasts. But with two notable differences. One, SuperRare is exclusive. To become a creator who sells on the marketplace, you must pass SuperRare’s strict criteria.
Two, unlike most other top NFT art marketplaces, SuperRare only takes in single edition NFTs (Single edition NFTs are NFTs that are not reproduced and so the owner of the NFT becomes the sole owner.)
Because of all such features, however, SuperRare charges higher fees and royalties from buyers and creators.
Foundation is another top NFT marketplace for digital art like images, videos, and 3D artwork. It is also the first platform to introduce 3D NFTs.
Foundation is most known for being the platform where some unique NFT sales happened. The Nyan Cat NFT and Edward Snowden’s NFT are two of them.
It is another top art NFT marketplace and is known for hosting NFTs from top artists like Michael Kagan, Inward, and Cris Cyborg.
It is also one of the few NFT marketplaces where you won’t need a crypto wallet to buy NFTs. Instead, you can buy NFT art using just credit cards.
These top NFT marketplace platforms have seen high trade volumes over the past couple of years.
The total transactions made in OpenSea throughout its lifetime reached $3.4 billion in August 2021. Likewise, the lifetime trade volume in both Axie Infinity and Crypto Punks reached $1 billion each.
Meanwhile, NBA Topshot’s total lifetime trade volume reached $483 million. SuperRare’s similarly reached $24.2 million. And Rarible $20.6 million. Foundation reached $16.3 million.
The demand for NFTs has shot up. Creators are creating more. Collectors are finding and stocking up on the best NFTs. Investors are identifying and investing in the most promising NFTs. While regular users are buying the NFTs they love.
Because of this, NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, Rarible, Foundation, etc., are generating a lot of revenue. The climbing demand for NFTs will further create demand for improved and diverse NFT marketplaces.
If you want to create your own private NFT marketplace, get in touch with Juego Studios. We are a top NFT game development company with a proven track record of creating NFT marketplaces, games, and applications. We have worked with clients around the world and executed their NFT projects exactly as per their requirements.
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