Ethereum remains the most popular blockchain on the market for launching dApps, DeFi, blockchain games, and NFT marketplaces. Despite its high fees, Ethereum is one of the most battle-tested blockchains available, making it one of the safest and most secure options for developers and users. Today we look at the top five NFT marketplaces on Ethereum, ranked by 30-day trading volume, lowest to highest.
5. OpenPFP – $40 million
Launched on March 28th, 2022, OpenPFP is a massive Ethereum NFT marketplace built by the top-rated Metaverse crypto coin Radio Caca.
OpenPFP enables the integration of its USM (The United States of Mars) Metaverse, which introduces 100 out-of-the-box galleries for PFP/NFT projects, NFT collectors, artists, and DAO communities to display their art and host community parties.
As an Ethereum-based NFT marketplace, OpenPFP features legendary collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Terraforms, etc. It also features the Metamon collection for Radio Caca’s play-to-earn Metamon game, which we recommend checking out.
Radio Caca is one of the most significant Metaverse crypto coins by market cap, currently valued at over $300 million with a 24-hour trading volume of $27.7 million. OpenPFP is off to a fantastic start, making it to the top five most popular Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces by trading volume, speaking to the tremendous long-term potential of this marketplace.
4. X2Y2 – $183 million
Launching in January 2022, X2Y2‘s vision is to build a genuinely decentralized NFT market and give it back to the community. X2Y2 is looking to create a better alternative to OpenSea, challenging its monopoly.
X2Y2 is looking to solve issues like the top marketplaces focusing on whales, not people, the lack of transparency, and the abundance of wash trading, which inflates the stats of collections and marketplaces in general.
The relatively new marketplace featured an Airdrop for its token, issued to all OpenSea users, essentially initiating a Vampire Attack looking to incentivize existing users to switch to the alternative market. In addition, X2Y2 limited staking rewards to try and curb wash trading and incentivize an honest ecosystem.
With a 30-day trading volume of $183 million, X2Y2 is the fourth-most traded NFT marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain. We recommend checking it out if you’re looking for a user-centric alternative to OpenSea.
3. LooksRare – $423 million
Launched in January 2022, LooksRare is another alternative to OpenSea that caught traction earlier this year. LooksRare is a community-first NFT marketplace that provides rewards for users buying/selling NFTs.
The marketplace features its native token LOOKS, which can be staked for a significant APY of up to 101%, and compounded for up to 148% APY. The marketplace enables users to earn a share of daily trading fees with WETH in the form of LOOKS, incentivizing users’ activity on the market.
One selling point for LooksRare is its much lower fees. The trading fees are 20% lower than OpenSea, and the additional rewards users earn by trading with LooksRare make it a viable alternative to the most popular marketplace on Ethereum.
In addition, it’s worth noting that LooksRare isn’t a fork of OpenSea, as its smart contracts are custom-built within a modular system enabling new features to be rolled out over time. It also integrates brand-new on-chain standards like EIP-712 and ERC-2981, supporting the most robust and up-to-date NFTs.
LOOKS is the primary utility asset on the platform, currently trading at $1.39 with a market capitalization of over $592 million, speaking to the tremendous potential and support for LooksRare. We recommend checking out the platform if you’re looking for an alternative to OpenSea with lower fees and superb design.
2. Gem – $581 million
Launching in January 2022, Gem is another recently-released NFT marketplace, currently the second-most traded market on Ethereum, with a 30-day trading volume of over $581 million.
Gem is an NFT aggregator, incorporating some of the most popular NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, LooksRare, and X2Y2. OpenSea recently acquired them in April 2022. Gem bundles together listings from various marketplaces to purchase in one go.
Due to aggregating the various collections, Gem effectively reduces the overall gas fees users have to pay for each purchase, solving many liquidity issues with traditional NFT markets.
Some of Gem’s most notable features include significant gas savings, a discover page, a bulk buy/sell page, multi-token payments, and more. Suppose you’re an NFT collector that purchases several NFTs at a time. In that case, we recommend utilizing Gem as it can save you a considerable amount of fees and time searching collections on various markets.
1. OpenSea – $3.11 billion
Launched in December 2017, the largest NFT marketplace is none other than OpenSea, a staple in the NFT community and a platform that most cryptocurrency enthusiasts know. With a 30-day trading volume magnitudes higher than any other NFT market out right now, OpenSea is the whale on this list.
OpenSea is a pioneer in NFT marketplaces and was the first market to go mainstream, setting the stage for others to follow both on the Ethereum blockchain and other smart-contract enabled chains.
OpenSea is also the most active NFT marketplace in cryptocurrency, with the most popular collections like BAYC, MAYC, and Otherdeed for Otherside listed first on its platform.
There are hundreds of NFTs sold every hour, and if you’re looking to get your foot in the door with NFTs, the first place you should visit is OpenSea. In addition, OpenSea integrates with Polygon, reducing the gas fees for users significantly. However, keep in mind that you still need to move your ETH to the MATIC chain to take advantage of the low fees.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or NFTs.
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