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NFTs are all the rage in 2022 and everyone wants in on the fun. If you’re not careful, you may even run into NFT scams! Read on to learn about NFTs and the platforms where you can buy and sell NFTs safely.
Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that are counterparts to real-world objects like images, videos, in-game items and more. They are gaining popularity as a new way to buy and sell digital artwork. Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum or Solana blockchains.
NFTs are called so as they are ‘non fungible’ or one of a kind. An NFT cannot be replaced with another as only one of each NFT exists. This scarcity and exclusivity make NFTs valuable, with some NFTs even being sold for millions of dollars.
Like marketplaces everywhere else on the internet, NFT marketplaces have their own fair share of scams too. These include:
Read our article about NFT Scams to Avoid to know more.
The platform that you choose to trade NFTs on is of utmost importance. Reliability and security need to be ensured as you are essentially trading assets, albeit digital. Below are some of the most popular and genuine platforms for trading NFTs.
| NFT Marketplace | All-time sales volume (USD millions)* |
| OpenSea | 10,390 |
| Axie Infinity | 3,140 |
| CryptoPunks | 1,610 |
| NBA Top Shot | 728.23 |
| Solanart | 521.63 |
| Rarible | 264.69 |
| AtomicMarket | 208.11 |
| SuperRare | 178.87 |
| Foundation | 104.75 |
| DigitalEyes Market | 101.42 |
*as of November 11, 2021. Source
OpenSea offers a marketplace allowing for non-fungible tokens to be sold directly at a fixed price, or through an auction, based on the Ethereum ERC-721 standard, the layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum Polygon, the KIP-7 standard for Klaytn, and the SPL standard for Solana. By January 2022, the company had been valued at $13.3 billion and has been considered the largest non-fungible token marketplace.
Axie Infinity is a non-fungible token-based online video game developed by Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis, known for its in-game economy which uses Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies. Players of Axie Infinity collect and mint NFTs which represent axolotl-inspired digital pets known as Axies. Sky Mavis charges a 4.25% fee to players when they trade Axies on its marketplace. Axie Infinity is built on the Ronin Network, an Ethereum-linked sidechain developed by Sky Mavis.
CryptoPunks is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Ethereum blockchain. The crypto art blockchain project was an inspiration for the ERC-721 standard for NFTs and the modern crypto art movement, which has since become a part of the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance ecosystems on multiple blockchains. There are 10,000 unique CryptoPunks (6,039 male and 3,840 female), all of which are made digitally scarce through the use of blockchain technology.
NBA Top Shot (NFT) is a blockchain-based platform that allows fans to buy, sell and trade Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) of historical events in the NBA. It is a joint venture between the National Basketball Association, the NBA Players Association, and Dapper Labs. The collectable component is just one aspect of the game, which also includes opportunities to show off collections, earn new tokens by completing in-app challenges, and a challenge feature in which players can use their team to play one-on-one games using the collective skills of the NBA stars a user has collected.
Solanart is a fully-fledged NFT marketplace based on the Solana network that allows anyone to acquire or sell Solana-based NFTs. Solanart aims to help promote artists and creators by providing them with a trustless marketplace to share their art. Solanart uses both on-chain and off-chain data. A 3% marketplace fee is taken on the selling price of every transaction. A creator's fee, which is chosen by the creators and therefore varies depending on the collection, is also taken on the selling price and fully perceived by the creators.
Rarible is an Ethereum-based platform that facilitates the creation, sale, and purchase of ownership rights to digital works of art via non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Rarible makes use of two NFT token standards: ERC-721, which allows for the creation of one-off unique items, and ERC-1155, which allows for the creation of multiple editions of an item.
AtomicAssets (launched June 30, 2020) is a new Non-Fungible Token (NFT) standard for the EOSIO blockchain technology. It allows users to explore, trade, sell and purchase AtomicAssets NFTs on the AtomicHub. AtomicAssets takes up as little RAM as 151 Bytes per asset and 112 Bytes per owner, without giving up usability.
SuperRare is a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace and social network for tokenized digital art. On the SuperRare platform, artists can issue limited edition art pieces that can be traced on the blockchain to provide verifiable proof of history and prevent counterfeiting. On the platform, users can see who the top collectors and trending artists are, how many pieces they’ve bought or created, and how much Ethereum (ETH) they’ve spent or accumulated. A user can also view the art itself along with a description and its history of owners.
Foundation (NFT Market) is a newer NFT marketplace that is gaining popularity as a reliable and curated NFT marketplace. Foundation helps creators mint and auction their digital artworks as NFTs on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. It relies on a community-led curation model after it invited the first 50 artists to the platform and then gifted each artist two invites to share with newcomers.
DigitalEyes was the first marketplace on the Solana blockchain. DigitalEyes market charges a 2.5% service fee, unlike other Solana markets that list them for a higher percentage. There are no additional fees apart from royalty if you wish to get a share on each of your tokens sold in the future.
Source: Wikipedia, Everipedia, Golden
