We are currently in an era of digital dominance, where in the last couple of years the economy has undergone a series of disruptive changes. Part of these changes has been the rise of NFTs and cryptocurrencies during the past 2021, which has reshaped the landscape of digital consumption. As part of this new type of consumption, new markets have also emerged, specializing in the sale of this type of asset, among which we can highlight .
What is Open Sea
OpenSea is a decentralized marketplace that specializes in trading digital assets, i.e. NFTs. Founded at the end of 2017 by Devin Finzer Y Alex Atallah, with the idea, as they explain, that “became a sort of Amazon of the guild”.
From then on, the history of OpenSea has been one of continuous growth, raising its first just half a year later. It totaled 1.7 million euros, a moderate sum, but which served as the basis for the development of the company. Well, by 2021 they raised a round of financing estimated at 100 million dollars, about 88.6 million euros. Based on this accelerated growth, this platform has positioned itself as a market leader, even serving as the home for some of the largest NFT purchases. Such is the case of «Everydays: The First 5,000 days» by Beeple, the most expensive NFT work to date, sold in €61.1 million.
With the goal of reaching the value of 10,000 million dollars, the platform currently has more than 20 million hosted collectible assets. Likewise, it has a staff of more than 2 million active users and around 200 different categories to filter your NFTs.
How OpenSea works
In principle OpenSea works like any other marketplace, only instead of finding the usual products, you can buy exclusively NFT. Likewise, its interface is built from technology, specifically in the Ethereum network, which is classified as one of the safest in this field.
In order to carry out any transaction in OpenSea, it is first necessary to have a digital wallet or wallet. There is a great variety of these on the internet, although the same platform recommends the use of meta mask, this being one of the best known and used in the crypto ecosystem. Having said wallet, it is necessary to link it to the OpenSea account, to which an evaluation of the same will be carried out. This step is very similar to data validation or biometric identification that we can find on different platforms, since in this case the wallet serves as the person’s “identity confirmation”.
At the end of this process, any user can proceed to buy any NFT they want, or on the contrary, upload their own and sell them in the marketplace.
Although built on the Ethereum network, OpenSea currently cross-supports other blockchains with it, such as the Polygon and Klatyn network. With this, OpenSea has more than 150 payment tokens available, although there are three fundamental cryptocurrencies: WET, USDC Y DAI.
Starting from all this, the use of the interface is quite simple, we can search for NFT through categories and filters or directly through a search engine. These have their proper descriptions, just as we would see in any product in our preferred marketplace. It also has information about the creators, collections and characteristics of the NFT.
How to buy at OpenSea
Now, now that we have an idea of what this marketplace is and how it works, the question remains about how to buy NFTs on OpenSea?
Well, if we have already linked our account we can proceed with the purchase. For this we need to locate the part that interests us. Once we click on it we can see the information regarding it, such as its name and who was the creator of it. At this point it is advisable to investigate both the creator of the piece and the collection, as we would do with a brand to validate its reputation.
On the other hand, the NFT file also shows if it is verified, or if it is a mintable token, this means that they are subject to shared smart contracts. Likewise, we can validate the number of people who have seen the NFT, the total number in existence, the smart contract for the purchase, etc.
Now, in OpenSea there are two purchase formats: direct and by auction. Auction purchases, as the name suggests, are made through bids within a certain time where the highest bid at the end of the time takes the NFT. In another order, direct purchases refer to when the user directly makes the estimated payment for the token, with which the piece can be taken directly without having to wait for the auction to end.
Keep in mind when making these purchases that the OpenSea platform charges a commission or gas fee for each transaction, which can be high, so it is advisable to take them into account when making any offer or purchase.
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