The emergence of blockchain technology has the opportunity to profoundly change human life. The popularity of the NFT concept has made the landing application slogan that the blockchain has been shouting all the year round become a reality. In today's society, the relationship between physical presence, virtual identity and digital entity has become more decentralized and pervasive. As of the beginning of 2021, the Gas usage of NFT and its supporting facilities has accounted for 14% of the entire Ethereum network.
Since 312 last year, Bitcoin has been bullish all the way up to nearly 20 times. DeFi has also successfully detonated the bull market, allowing the cryptocurrency market to regain the eyes of funds and practitioners. As DeFi gradually deepens, who can "inherit" the enthusiasm of the bull market, Polkadot and NFT become the only two choices. However, as the Polkadot ecology has increased by ten times or even dozens of times, its price and future value ceiling have great limitations. Many people began to look at NFT. Compared with the entire cryptocurrency market or a certain explosive segment, it is not an exaggeration to say that the space of NFT is a "sea of stars".
As expected, the popularity of NFT is rising, and its core NFT encrypted trading platform plays an irreplaceable role in the application and promotion of encrypted works and technologies. Today, some of the more active crypto exchanges include OpenSea, Nifty Gateway, RefactorerNFT, Rarible, SuperRare, and MakersPlace. This article will conduct an in-depth analysis and comparison of these six platforms, so that users can fundamentally understand the potential and future of NFT.
OpenSea ： https://opensea.io/
Founded in 2018, OpenSea is positioned as an industry-leading decentralized NFT exchange (Decentralized Exchange, DEX), providing peer-to-peer Ethereum non-homogeneous token (NFT) transactions. The comprehensive platform sells a variety of digital goods, including artwork NFT, game NFT, etc. On the OpenSea platform, users can conduct NFT transactions with any user using the platform, and currently supports the production of NFT. The editor frankly admits that the cost is very high, and the pockets are empty just to make NFT. OpenSea has recently completed tens of millions of dollars in financing led by a16z and others, and may issue tokens in the near future.
Currently, OpenSea is the largest NFT trading market in the industry, with more than 700 items, including many well-known NFT products such as Gods Unchained and Cryptopinks, and collectible games such as Axie Infinity and CryptoKitties. Commodities have multiple categories, fully tokenized and digitized. Since proof of ownership and transaction records are permanently stored on the blockchain, users can become legal owners once they pay. Unlike physical items, the item cannot be stolen and sold elsewhere, as the record of ownership and all subsequent ownership records are permanently recorded on the blockchain.
Nifty Gateway ： https://niftygateway.com/
Nifty Gateway is a regulated, non-fungible token (NFT) money market built on top of Gemini. On the platform, users are free to use credit cards to purchase NFTs, which can be cashed directly into bank accounts when sold. This move has greatly provided users outside the circle with enthusiasm for participating in the trading of NFT artworks. For Nifty Gateway, users only need to register an email address to start transacting NFTs. Recently, Nifty Gateway has also updated the hidden function - Prepaid ETH, which puts Ethereum users and credit card users in a fast transaction environment, ensuring that users can receive the purchased collections within one second.
Nifty Gateway excels at spotting hot spots by partnering with celebrities to create and distribute exclusive tokenized collectibles. The platform launches new collectible NFTs in less than a month. More representative works include the platform's collaboration with former UFC women's lightweight champion Cris Cyborg and photographer Lyle Owerko. This year, Nifty Gateway tweeted that the creator of Rick & Morty would also be selling its NFT artwork on Ethereum. Cooperating with celebrities is the most effective and simple way to realize NFT's rapid circulation.
RefactorerNFT ： https://refactorer.finance/
RefactorerNFT was established in 2020 and has completed a million-dollar angel round of financing. Refactorer realizes the combination of DeFi and NFT value through the innovative use of four blocks and two Tokens, and then realizes NFT as the core of asset value.
RefactorerNFT will support all non-homogeneous token assets, and support heavy assets such as real estate on the chain. And the platform has reached exclusive partnerships with many leading encrypted artists. Users only need to upload assets to Refactorer and make their own split selection to start the fragmentation generation function. And the homogeneous token RFT will be issued soon: users will participate in mining during the process of generating NFT or splitting, so that users can obtain Token incentives in the whole process of uploading, ecology, trading, splitting, and synthesizing NFT.
The biggest difference between RefactorerNFT and several other projects is that it largely supports the chaining of heavy assets such as real estate and cars. At present, the mainstream NFT exchanges in the market mainly trade NFTs of games and artworks, which essentially greatly restricts the scalability of NFTs. While many projects are still looking for ways to realize just-needed assets on-chain, RefactorerNFT has opened up a new path for asset on-chain to the greatest extent through a trusted third party combined with NFT.
Rarible ： https://rarible.com/
Rarible is an NFT issuance and trading platform that creates and sells digital collectibles secured by the blockchain. The platform is an open-source, non-custodial platform for users to mint, sell and create collectibles. Any user can enter Rarible, create and display their own artwork. And users own the ownership and intellectual property rights of NFT. Buyers and sellers can trade collectibles at almost negligible cost on the Rarible NFT marketplace.
Rarible also released its own native governance token ERC-20 token RARI in 2020, which greatly increased the transaction volume of the NFT trading market by introducing homogeneous tokens, improved the sales process and sales conditions, and improved the user experience and barriers to entry. It has effectively promoted the NFT market to move closer to popular traffic.
The decentralization feature of Rarible is very obvious. Decentralized trading platforms will delegate governance rights to all those who hold governance tokens, and the only way to earn these governance tokens is to buy them on encrypted exchanges. While these tokens are nominally used for governance, many holders actually use them for profit. The decentralized model coupled with the governance token allows users to manage the development and decision-making of the platform, allowing the most active players to vote for any platform upgrade and participate in management and review. And tokens can be obtained in the form of trading NFT, which can promote the improvement of NFT market liquidity in disguise.
Looking at the characteristics of Rarible, it is not difficult to find that the platform greatly facilitates the process of users creating and minting their own digital tokens. The threshold is low, providing a convenient user experience for non-coders, and the transaction cost is low in the peer-to-peer model. But at the same time, the low threshold and insufficient protection of product originality can easily lead to the proliferation of counterfeit products, which greatly increases the cost of user identification and reduces the user experience of ordinary collection lovers on the platform.
SuperRare： http://superrare.co/
Founded in 2017, SuperRare is known as a collection of global NFT artists, with nearly a thousand encrypted artists. It is easy to create, sell and collect digital artwork on this platform. The platform provides a creative platform for artists and a place for collectors to store or trade art assets, and is committed to ensuring the scarcity, originality and exclusivity of works, and hopes to effectively solve copyright traceability and other issues. Artists can sell their creations through various forms such as auctions or fixed prices.
In order to improve the quality of NFT artworks and reduce piracy, SuperRare proposed that only invited artists can create artwork NFTs on the platform, but anyone can hold and trade NFTs on the platform itself. To apply to become an NFT artist on the platform, an application form must be filled in according to official requirements. SuperRare requires that all artwork created on the platform must be original and can only be tokenized through SuperRare. The high threshold requirements for artists to settle in can guarantee the quality of artworks to a large extent, and can also help promote the realization of partial monopoly traffic. (Following news: At the time of writing, SuperRare closed a $9 million Series A round)
MakersPlace ： https://makersplace.com/
Released in 2016, MakersPlace is a full-service platform for artists and creators based on blockchain technology, mainly producing and trading NFTs representing their works. With the help of blockchain technology, digital artwork produced through MakersPlace is signed and issued by the creator himself. Even if someone else copied the digital work, it would not be an authentic or original signed copy. The platform connects artists with art lovers and collectors, hoping that artists will better capture the full potential value of digital works.
MakersPlace provides a platform for artists to sell their works of art online. Artists only need to provide a corresponding ID photo to obtain the generated ERC-20 tokens in MakersPlace and trade their works. Encrypted artists and collectors can choose their own collection storage address, which can be stored in the wallet provided by MakersPlace or in their own wallet. At the same time, MakersPlace will also generate blockchain fingerprints (similar to hash marks) for each work of artists and creators to prove the identity and source of the work, which is subversive among many NFT exchanges. (The editor believes that if this logo is popularized, it can greatly reduce the existence of piracy and inferior NFT)
This article only briefly introduces the overview of the six major trading platforms, including detailed token economic models, investment situations, and project cooperation, which will be presented in the next article. Thank you for your support.
