2021 is a boom year for non-fungible tokens or NFTs. The NFT market has grown exponentially and has even tripled in the first few months of the year.

According to a market report by the decentralized app DappRadar, the average NFT transaction volume rose by almost 300% from 21,815 Tx per day in January to 82,373 Tx in May.

That is an overview of the NFT market, and today I am going to take you to the top 5 leading NFT marketplaces (trading platforms).

Open sea

OpenSea is considered the premier NFT marketplace and claims to be the largest NFT marketplace to date. Called one of Ethereum’s NFT cradles. This platform makes it easy for you to create your own NFTs or to trade NFTs from other projects on different marketplaces. One of the reasons OpenSea stands out is its strong community. Earlier this year, the platform hit the milestone of more than 25,000 users, which is no small number.

You can create your own NFT collection without necessarily paying gas fees (transaction fees). Instead, you only have to pay the gas fee once when you start selling on the OpenSea marketplace. However, the royalties you can get per item are not as high as Rarible because they are capped at 10%, while the Rarible royalties you can get are up to 30%. It’s not entirely a disadvantage either, as it will be very difficult for buyers to want to buy your work if they have to pay excessive royalties.

Additionally, you can add OpenSea products from other platforms like Mintable and Rarible, making it a literal one “open ocean” makes.

Axie infinity

Axie Infinity is a game that revolves around imaginary creatures that go by the cute name “Axie”. At the beginning of March 30, 2021, the project reported over 19,000 monthly active users online.

The Axie Infinity Marketplace shocked the NFT market when CoinDesk announced on February 9, 2021 that one of its NFTs – an in-game virtual land – was selling for 888 ETH (about $ 1.5 million). What an incredible amount!

The Axie Infinity ecosystem is pretty attractive when it comes to giving players full ownership. These players can exchange their in-game assets, NFTs, for digital currencies.

Unlike many other NFT marketplaces, the Axie Infinity Marketplace only sells characters and items from the Axie Infinity ecosystem. So if you’re looking for some digital art to hang on your living room wall, you probably need to look elsewhere.

Rare

Founded in early 2020, Rarible is an open source NFT marketplace where any user can buy, mint, and sell their digital items. .Rarible is specifically focused on art content and virtual collections. The platform also offers a simple NFT build process that is particularly suitable for those who have no programming knowledge. This removed barriers so that many artists and advertisers could sell their digital work.

Rarible is a marketplace that connects sellers (digital content creators or artists) with buyers who can acquire ownership of works without the need for a middleman. Infrequent transactions take place via a smart contract and are stored in a blockchain ledger, which offers market participants transparency and security.

In February 2021, Rarible raised $ 1.75 million in a seed funding round. Notable investors include Coinbase Ventures, Bollinger Investment Group, MetaCartel Ventures, and CoinFund.

The NFT trading platform has seen an even bigger surge in investment since then, reaching a market capitalization of over $ 30 million.

NBA top shot

NBA Top Shot is a blockchain platform that enables fans to buy, sell, and trade officially licensed highlights.

In a partnership from around July 2019 between the National Basketball Association, the NBA Players Association and Dapper Labs, the NBA Top Shot was jointly named “revolutionary new experience. Where the best matches and unforgettable highlights become collectibles that you can own forever.“Said Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs.

The way the NBA works is to simply cut out the highlights of a game, then Dapper Labs will decide how many cards to sell and number each card in turn. Then sell Top Shot on the NBA homepage for $ 9-230.

The price of the cards depends on the quality, the number of stars the player has and the rarity of the card. After you purchase a package, it will be transferred to your crypto wallet for “display” or resale on the NBA Top Shot Marketplace.

Currently, Ja Morant’s highlight card is priced at $ 100,000. An incredible number. With this, the volume of NBA Top Shot leads the NFT trading market with a value of 5-6 billion USD per year.

Very rare

SuperRare is Ethereum’s leading crypto art marketplace. Both artists and collectors can sell millions of dollars worth of ETH on SuperRare, even though the NFT platform is still in its infancy. The potential for future growth seems very open.

On the SuperRare platform, artists create a work of art and code it. Once NFT is on SuperRare, it can be bought, sold, or even treated as a long-term investment. Artists can auction their works or sell them at a fixed price. Once the NFT has been sold to a buyer, it can be resold on multiple NFT trading platforms at any price.

In 2020, the project successfully partnered with DADA.art for an event at the Tate Modern Museum in London – the first time digital works of art were created in a world-class museum and then immediately made available to collectors worldwide.

Summary

Above, I’ve listed the top 5 most popular NFT trading platforms today. Currently, NFT is becoming a very strong up and coming trend, but in order to decide which investment to make, I recommend that you take the time to do your research.

See you in the next few posts.