The world has gone crazy with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) recently. If you want to keep up and get familiar with this trend, you may consider buying or even selling some unique digital artwork in the form of NFT.
The first thing you should do is to find reliable NFT platforms where trading takes place.
Such virtual trading platforms allow you to buy and sell a wide variety of digital assets, from artworks to virtual land.
Nowadays there are many NFT platforms, and each of them has its pros and cons. It gets even more confusing if you take into account the variety of different blockchains, token standards, and ultimately – NFT types. For example, there are platforms dedicated to gaming tokens only.
So after extensive research, in this overview, we’ve gathered all information about the top-10 NFT platforms that are considered to be the best as of 2022.
1. OpenSea – your top choice with a huge selection of assets
OpenSea marketplace is one of the earty pioneers in NFT trading. The marketplace WAS founded back in 2017 in New York and since then has grown to $3.5 billion in sales per month. As for the second quarter of 2022, OpenSea has over 1 million active users. It features a huge variety of digital assets – paintings by contemporary artists, domain names, game and sports cards, utilities, and even virtual land pieces.
You don’t even need to register on the platform to make a transaction – all you need to do is log in to the site using your wallet of choice: MetaMask, WalletConnect, Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, Opera Touch, Glow, and others. You can choose from 241 payment options to buy and sell items on this marketplace, including stable coins.
Like many other platforms, OpenSea utilizes smart contracts to enable the trade of assets.
Smart contracts provide a strong security layer, which is especially crucial when dealing with art objects.
2. Crypto.com – trusted by more than 10 million
Another great option for buying and selling NFTs is the multi purpose platform Crypto.com.
In addition to cryptocurrency trading services, it recently launched its own FT marketplace.
Crypto.com aims to simplify the entire investment process, and users can create an account in minutes. NFTs are available both at auction and at a fixed price. What makes this platform more convenient than the others is the elegantly designed Crypto.com Pay gateway that allows you to purchase NFT with your credit card. They also have a well-designed app, SO you can browse and buy NFTs directly from the mobile device.
Another appealing factor of this platform is that NFT buyers are exempt from fees. In a secondary sale, the one who put up the NFT is charged 5% (sometimes the exchange holds promotions, reducing the percentage). This person also pays a royalty to the NFT creator of the token. At each resale, the creator of NFT is entitled to 10%.
This platform is easy to navigate and accessible to both new and experienced investors.
Crypto.com has already partnered with many well-known names such as Snoop Dogg and Boy George, which only increased the trust in the platform.
Finally, according to the recent press release, the platform now supports Ethereum-based NFTs, which greatly expands opportunities both for investors and customers.
3. NFT Launchpad one of the most exciting platforms out there
Another popular NFT trading platform in 2022 is NFT LaunchPad. Launched in February 2022, this newly-born marketplace has already started to attract the attention of investors.
As of now, the trading platform offers NFTs minted in the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Polygon blockchains. NFT LaunchPad features an easy-to-use interface with clearly labeled sections for buying and creating NFTs. The site also offers collections from numerous top creators, including the super-popular FT Lucky Block.
The buying process is incredibly simplified, as NFT LaunchPad sells digital assets through a traditional ‘Dutch-style’ auction or for a fixed price. Users can connect their MetaMask wallet to the platform in a few dicks, retaining full control over their private keys. The variety of new NFT collections on this platform makes it a promising place to browse for NFTs.
4. Binance NFT – the platform with very low transaction fees
As you may have already guessed from its name, this marketplace is operated by Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange (according to CoinMarketCap).
Binance prides itself on offering very low fees. To purchase an NFT you have to pay only a 1% transaction fee to the platform. The Binance NFT Marketplace offers NFTs minted on the Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum blockchains.
Through an easy-to-use interface, you have access to a great variety of assets – from art to sports and games. Binance also offers an attractive Mystery Box feature, where users can purchase a box and receive random NFTs, sometimes extremely valuable.
Currently, the Binance NFT Marketplace website allows you to buy NFTs using cryptocurrency only, although those users who don’t own crypto can easily buy it through the Binance exchange. NFTs can be purchased at an auction or a fixed price and transferred to an external wallet.
Finally, the Binance trading platform even allows users to create their own NFTs with a a low fee paid in BNB, the platform’s native token.
5. Nifty Gateway – the Premium NFT platform
The platform Nifty Gateway was founded in 2018 in the United States, later it was bought by the cryptocurrency exchange site – Gemini LLC. Thanks to the latter, Nifty Gateaway has a good reputation now.
One of the special features of this platform is that you can use fiat money using your credit cards to make transactions. However, the service is available only for users from America, the others have to use a Gemini account.
Nifty Gateway is generally betting on the rarity of the NFTs available on the platform. What they do is that they team up with leading digital art creators and sell their high-quality rare NFT tokens that would be available only on this site. The conditions offered by the Nifty Gateway are quite severe: they take a 15% fee on any transaction on top of the gas fees.
6. GameStop – promising NFT platform for blockchain games
The Game Stop Marketplace is one of the most exciting NFT platforms to launch this year.
GameStop aims to go beyond simply selling video games and gain a foothold in the NFT gaming space. The company creates a large fund for game developers who prefer to use GameStop’s marketplace over the altematives. The platform is built on Immutable X, the Layer 2 protocol for Ethereum.
As you might expect, the GameStop marketplace will primarily focus on in-game items such as digital properties, weapons, skins, etc. The specifics of the platform are still unclear.
Most reports claim that Game Stop will be looking to partner with major video game developers to offer collectible NFTs that fans of certain franchises will enjoy.
7. DraftKings – the NFT marketplace for sports
DraftKings is a large sports betting company, based in the U.S. The company launched its NFT marketplace in late 2021 and it features limited-edition assets of many top athletes.
Notable NFTs that have been listed on the DraftKings marketplace include items from Tony Hawk, Wayne Gretzky, and many others. Users who already have a DraftKings account can easily access the marketplace with their standard login.
More than 300 collectibles, from cheaper options to premium, are currently available on the marketplace. Users can fund their DraftKings account with credit/debit cards, bank transfers, and even PayPal. Note that purchases are only allowed in U.S. dollars, and DraftKings doesn’t support cryptocurrency yet. The secondary market sales will accrue a 10% royalty to the initial creator and a 5% transaction fee.
8. Rarible- All around art
The first Russian NFT platform to be recognized worldwide currently has $1.3 million of trading volume per day. The project was created in 2020 in Moscow. The founders of Rarible, Alex Salnikov and Alexey Falin created Rarible with the base token called RARI.
About 20 thousand different artists and their digital art collections can be found on the platform. Apart from visual art, you can also purchase here domain names in the form of NFT.
A distinctive feature of the website is that the authors are rewarded with each resale of their work. The intellectual ownership rights are managed through the Proof of Provenance (PoP) protocol.
The platform takes a fee from both buyer and seller – 2.5% plus a minting fee. In total, the fees are somewhat similar to the ones on OpenSea.
Rarible operates on the Ethereum blockchain and uses RARI control tokens, which allow users to vote for changes made on the platform.
9. WAX – a viable alternative to Ethereum-based platforms
WAX is a blockchain network launched in 2017 and intended to increase the efficiency of e-commerce transactions. The network is compatible with EOS and uses blockchain capabilities to compete with Ethereum to become a leader in the space. The WAX NFT platform is called SimpleMarket and offers more than 140,000 NFTs for trading.
The large majority of WAX NFTs is denominated in WAX, the network’s native token.
Well-known brands such as Sony have already used the WAX blockchain to create their NFTs, which has increased the credibility of the platform.
SimpleMarket charges a a 2% transaction fee on the secondary market deals.
10. Foundation – premium marketplace for exclusive art
Foundation is positioning itself as an NFT platform working only with exclusive music and art. To work with the service, you need to get an invitation from one of the website’s authors.
During the operation of this platform, more than $100 million worth of tokens has been sold.
And while the marketplace loses too many of the competitors in our list in terms of trading volume, its main advantage is the maximum coverage of the niche target audience.
As for fees, Foundation charges a 15% merchant fee per transaction, the highest fee among the other platforms we have reviewed. Since Foundation is based on Ethereum, users should use ETH to pay for NFT purchases. Currently, Foundation only supports wallets set up through MetaMask or WalletConnect.
Conclusion
We hope this overview of the most popular platforms for buying NFTs was useful to you. As you see, the popularity of NFTs will only grow with time and there is no way to dismiss this fact. So, it’s still not too late to dive into NFT today! However, any beginner should be cautious when investing in digital assets. None of the platforms, no matter how reliable they position themselves, can guarantee 100% protection from fraud, fakes, or market volatility.
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