Rising OpenSea 🌊 - TokenSmart NFT Humpday Report #24
Welcome to the 24th issue of the NFT Humpday Report, a weekly column covering and providing embedded analysis on the NFT economy’s biggest topics du jour. Brought to you by WIP meetup collaborators and nft42 community hub TokenSmart.
Originally launched in Dec. 2017, NFT marketplace OpenSea has since become not just one of the most widely used apps in the NFT ecosystem but also one of the most popular apps within the entire cryptoeconomy, according to analytics sites DappRadar and State of the Dapps.
Why it matters: OpenSea’s been trailblazing as a user-friendly, do-it-yourself NFT marketplace for years. That’s why as attention around NFTs has been surging lately (both around crypto and in the mainstream), OpenSea’s been well positioned with its millions of aggregated listings and its suite of helpful features to rake in large swathes of this inbound activity.
Moreover, OpenSea’s current success is making it a gateway for newcomers to explore a range of projects across the wider NFT ecosystem, so the platform’s rising tide is lifting other boats.
What they’re saying: Spencer Noon, the creator of the Our Network report series and an investor at crypto VC firm Variant, argued in a Twitter thread this week that OpenSea was “the biggest story flying under the radar in NFTs right now.”
In the thread, Noon noted:
OpenSea came close to hitting $100M in sales last month, nearly matching the ~$100M in sales made across all cryptoart platforms combined in the same span.
OpenSea’s now reached more total users than many top DeFi projects have, including blue-chip DeFi protocols like Aave, Yearn, and more.
The marketplace is becoming like the “Google of NFTs,” with over 14M NFTs currently listed for sale.
Speaking of Google, the company’s recent search trends suggest searches for “OpenSea” are starting to match those of “DeFi.”
Creators minted more than 100k gas-free NFTs on OpenSea last week, showing real demand for the platform’s affordable minting.
It’s not all smooth sailing: All that said, OpenSea’s biggest advantages are 1) its extensive general NFT marketplace, and 2) it’s easy-to-use, flexible NFT minting services. Yet these minting services leave much to be desired on the NFT durability front precisely because OpenSea optimizes for ease and flexibility here rather than longevity.
For example, this week Twitter user neitherconfirm published a thread detailing an experiment in which they minted a series of NFTs on OpenSea and then went back in through OpenSea and edited the NFTs to pictures of rugs (i.e. the “rugpull” con).
The point of the episode? To illustrate that these aren’t much in the way of reliable NFTs if they can be so readily altered. So while OpenSea scores great grades in virtually every category, it’s certainly not offering the gold standard right now when it comes to minting durable and immutable NFTs.
The big picture: OpenSea is one of the great early stars of the NFT ecosystem, and it’s got plenty of room to evolve and iterate further from here.
To make that happen, the marketplace is scaling up its team and its infrastructure. The marketplace’s open and DIY nature also means its growing community will also continue to play a pivotal role in steering where OpenSea goes from here.
Thanks for reading the 24th NFT Humpday Report! Check back this time next week for more excellent NFT ecosystem coverage! Cheers🌠