As OpenSea stumbles, a new company sees a better way forward.
OpenSea is the most recognizable NFT marketplace. The company sprinted from startup to rapid success in four years, gaining momentum last year at a kamikaze pace. A powerful middleman, OpenSea charges a 2.5 percent cut every time an NFT is sold on the platform.
In the fall of 2021, more than 220,000 NFTs were sold daily. The current trend hovers around 19,000 NFTs changing hands each day. Although sales have temporarily plummeted, OpenSea’s cut of the action has added up.
The company has raised $400 million from investors and is currently valued at an astonishing $13.3 billion. Sellers clamored to put their digital art up for auction, and buyers jumped in, but savvy users were waiting to exploit OpenSea’s exponential growth.
Traders figured out a way to purchase NFTs at a lower offering price. For example, an initial listing of a Bored Ape was set for sale at 90 ETH. As the NFT collection skyrocketed in popularity last year, the owner re-listed the ape for 269 ETH. Unfortunately, the ape sold at the 90 ETH price. The owner is currently in negotiation with the company for compensation.
As OpenSea stumbles, a new company sees a better way forward.
Entrepot – Truly Decentralized and Host to Bitcoin Flowers
Entrepot.app is an NFT marketplace where users can store and trade digital assets. The app is the first of its kind to run on Dfinity’s Internet Computer (IC), making the NFT platform truly decentralized.
An entrepot is a port, city, or location to which goods are brought for import and export. It’s a center used for collection and distribution. The platform takes its name from this definition.
Entrepot uses Dfinity’s native token, ICP, for all trading. The site is also non-custodial, meaning all assets remain in the user’s control. Entrepot never takes custody, so accidental sales of NFTs won’t occur.
The company charges a 1% marketplace fee, and collection creators can charge a royalty fee of up to 10%. Plans to partner with a wide variety of artists, developers, and curators are in the works. The platform hosts projects like World of Tacos, IC Birds, and BTC Flower.
BTC Flower is a breakout star of Entrepot. The project was born out of street art by Paris-based artist Ludo. In 2018, the artist began painting sunflowers blooming above gravestones marked with the symbols of global currencies – the pound, the Dollar, the Yen, and the Euro. This new iteration of an NFT Bitcoin sunflower takes on a new life, ingeniously adapting to external signals.
“The 20 front petals of each BTC Flower animate dynamically in a variety of patterns according to the price of bitcoin, giving the illusion of motion. The animations move faster if the price is up, and slower when it is down.” – Dfinity
Pretty cool.
The NFT project hit 10k ICP in volume in the first few days on the secondary market and reached 20k within a week. BTC Flower now ranks number six in all-time volume for Entrepot.
Unique projects like BTC Flower, matched with the opportunity for creators to save money on marketplace fees, will put Entrepot in a position to pull ahead of OpenSea.
The Future Looks Stormy
NFTs aren’t going anywhere.
NFTs can create communities and bring online perks into real life. The cryptocurrency space is coming out of a fierce Crypto Winter, but the NFT market is still alive and well despite investors pulling back.
OpenSea has problems to sort out, but they are still the number one NFT marketplace in the world, thanks to the skyrocketing of new users during last year’s crypto bull run. But they have yet to face a worthy competitor.
Projects like BTC Flower prove that new platforms can take hold and begin to edge out OpenSea.
Entrepot has three things that OpenSea doesn’t. It runs on a fully decentralized platform, the site is non-custodial, and its fees are lower than OpenSea’s.
Will the Entrepot marketplace win out? They’ve got a savvy business model that has real potential to sink OpenSea.
OpenSea may not need a lifeboat yet, but its future looks stormy.
About Kit
Kit Campoy is a former retail professional turned freelance writer. She writes about Leadership, Retail, and Web3. Contact Kit for your content needs.