Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, has standing offers of up to $10,000 for his tweets. You’re not the only one who finds this surprising.
This offer was made by Valuables, an online marketplace for signed tweets recorded and verified on the Ethereum blockchain.
Some of you may also be baffled by the exploding NFT market. Artist Beeple sold his digital collage by crypto for $69 million at the auction house Christie in the NFT Market.
NFT stands for non-fungible token. It is a digital asset that acts as a secure record for ownership of an item or collection. NFTs are digital assets that cannot be duplicated or altered. They can be used to track ownership of property that is not easily replicated like rights to images or pieces of land.
The dollar can be interchangeable with any other dollar. This is also true for cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. An NFT is a different thing. It is like a rare stamp or a diary, but an NFT works differently. The value of the NFT is linked to its scarcity and proof.
You can mint almost anything as an NFT. This includes CryptoPunks blockheads, Short films, Virtual cannabis farms. But investors have been most excited about digital art, sports collectibles, and games that allow users to create and manage alternate worlds.
How To Buy NFTs
Today, NFTs can be purchased using ether (ETH), which is the native currency of Ethereum. It is easily converted into U.S. Dollars on exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.
Blockchain networks like Ethereum and Solana allow users to build apps that can store personal information and set rules for complex financial transactions. This is in contrast to bitcoin, which acts primarily as a payment system and cryptocurrency.
To buy NFTs you need a digital wallet. You can connect to the market where you want to buy NFTs, such as Metamast, Binance, and Coinbase.
NFTs can often be sold via an auction where you will place a bid. OpenSea offers the option to purchase NFTs now at a fixed price.
Where Can You Buy NFTs?
NFTs are a market for artists. They allow them to sell work and automate a way to recoup royalty payments. Investors who are bullish on the technology, which is a group that often overlaps with cryptocurrency enthusiasts, see NFTs to be a way for them to financially support artists and flex their digital art collection while also allowing them to speculate in a market witnessing incredible growth.
How fast is the market expanding? Market Watch reported in August 2021 that Ethereum transaction volume at OpenSea reached $3.4 billion. Venture capital is flooding into the NFT economy, from investors such as Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, and A16z Crypto (a subset of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz), so there’s a reason for us to believe that the NFT economy is more than just a fad.
There have been numerous reports of fraud and theft. There are many fees and commissions, and the electricity required to operate the Ethereum network as it generates huge carbon emissions. Market participants should approach the market with open eyes and understand that it is important to carefully evaluate marketplaces, even those with inconspicuous FAQs.
Keep all this in mind and if you are still unsure where to start, here are 17 marketplaces that offer sellers and buyers of NFTs to trade..
SuperRare
SuperRare allows you to sell single-edition digital artworks through a peer-to–peer marketplace. An Instagram tile with windows that looks like an Instagram profile shows art, listing prices, sales prices and timestamps. The site is highly trafficked and hosts a variety of brands and artists. The site feels like an online magazine with features such as a social feed, a calendar listing upcoming exhibitions, and an editorial page that includes profiles and artist statements. All transactions are done using ether, which is the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network.
Foundation
Foundation was launched in February 2021. It has hosted NFT sales for the viral internet meme Nadya Tolokonnikova’s, Aphex Twin, and Edward Snowden’s Finite records. The grid displays creators’ work in cards. Trending auctions are at the top, followed by featured artists. The reserve price is set and bidding can be made for up to 24 hours. If bids are received within the last 15 minutes, there will be a 15-minute extension. Before they can create an artist profile, mint an NFT, or buy artwork from the site, users must set up a MetaMask wallet using ether.
Mintable
Mintable, which is owned by Marc Benioff and Mark Cuban, offers a marketplace to buy and sell NFTs. Its model is similar to that of eBay. The site was built on Ethereum and Zilliqa Blockchains. It is also integrated with MetaMask where buyers can create crypto wallets. Creators can choose to mint “gasless” NFTs or short-run printable series, as well as traditional transaction-based items. After creating profiles and loading their wallets with funds, buyers can buy listed items or participate in auctions. The winners will be notified via email.
OpenSea
OpenSea was founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah (a software development team). It claims to be the “first and largest marketplace for user owned digital goods.” You can search the marketplace by price or sales status to find everything, from virtual real estate to sounds from The Weeknd. The stats tab, which is almost like a stock ticker, ranks sellers according to volume, average sales price, and number of assets sold. Buyers who have wallets loaded with USD Coin (USDC), Dai ( AI), and more than 150 other payment tokens can either buy fixed-price NFTs from sellers directly or bid on them in auctions. An offer record is stored in the user’s profile.
NBA Top Shot
This NBA-licensed game allows fans to collect and trade digital “moments”, which were launched by DapperLabs as a beta in early 2020. Moments are available in limited-edition sets starting at $9 to $230 or open trade on a broader marketplace. They feature video highlights, player stats, and box scores. Collectors have the option to display their collections, follow their favorite teams, and trade assets that are secured on the company’s blockchain. According to CoinDesk, NBA Top Shot had over one million users as of May 2021. Between 150,000 and 250,000 people log in each day.
Axie Infinity
Infinity was designed by Sky Mavis, a Vietnamese startup. It is a Pokemon-inspired game that lets players create farming kingdoms, collect pets and battle other players. Axie Infinity stated on its website that it had more than 23 million monthly users between September 18 and October 18, 2021. NFTs are used to encrypt characters and land plots. Online sellers can sell them to gamers and collectors, while some land plots fetch more than $20,000.
Sorare
Sorare, a cryptocurrency-based fantasy football league, allows users to collect player cards and use them in online competitions. There are 180 licensed clubs on the site, including Major League Soccer teams, and all transactions are made in Ethereum. Although users can purchase low-cost digital players to participate in fantasy leagues, NFT collectibles outperform others by scoring multipliers.
Venly
Venly has more than 200,000 users. Its peer to-peer NFT marketplace allows logged in users to buy, sell, and create game characters, weapons, and collectibles. To buy and sell assets in blockchain games such as Vulcan Verse, Ethermon, and The Sandbox, users can link their accounts with digital wallets. The partnership with Polygon allows payments in U.S. Dollars via PayPal. This is a framework for connecting Ethereum-compatible cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain networks.
Nifty Gateway
Nifty Gateway works with brands and artists to create Nifties, a term that is used for NFTs. Sales are organized around “drops,” where collections are only available for a short time, usually in three-week increments. Nifties can then be resold on the site’s peer to-peer marketplace after a drop is over or an artwork has sold out. The site features work from artists such as Beeple, BDWhite, Cam Hicks and Playboy. It operates at high volumes and has a discovery page, detailed stats dashboard that shows sales and appreciation figures, as well as a log of all site activity.
Zora
Zora, a decentralized auctionhouse with an activist manifesto, aims to help artists regain the value that labels and galleries have traditionally taken in commissions for distribution and service. Through linked Ethereum wallets such as MetaMask and WalletConnect, buyers can search for music, video and images as well as text NFTs. Zora, which is also a marketplace, is open-source and built on ERC-721, the most widely used standard for NFTs. Creators have the ability to resell NFTs wherever it integrates with the protocol. They can also specify royalty percentages for secondary sale.
Decentraland
Decentraland is self-described on its homepage as the “first-ever virtual world owned and controlled by users.” It allows users to explore underwater kingdoms, casinos, and other visions of space while also using a builder tool that can be used to create land holdings, influence, and power. The game can be played with a VR headset, or via a web browser. It functions as a self-contained market where players can sell and buy land, estates and avatar clothing, and also register their names on the Ethereum ledger. According to NonFungible, a NFT sales database, there were 196 transactions that brought in more than $491,000 between October 11-18, 2021.
Rarible
Rarible allows users to mint, buy, and sell digital collectibles. These include animated videos that commemorate sports milestones like Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s unbeaten 50-0 record. It is similar to Spotify’s layout, which features a scrollable stack with columns that feature top sellers, hot collection and live auctions. Rarible is undergoing a transition to becoming a decentralized autonomous organization. Soon, it will be governed under the rules of Ethereum blockchain. This allows for open, permissionless usage. RARI, a governance token, allows active buyers and sellers vote for platform enhancements and to participate in moderation decisions.
The Sandbox
According to a project whitepaper, The Sandbox aims to “disrupt existing game makers like Roblox and Minecraft by giving creators true ownership to their creations as nonfungible tokens.”
The Sandbox is a video game in which players can monetize experiences using the Ethereum blockchain. The game’s utility token and usage fee is paid in cryptocurrency, known as SAND. VoxEdit is a 3D voxel modeling program that can be uploaded, published, and sold via a web-based marketplace. The editor allows creations to be placed on land parcels. This allows the user to modify the game’s mechanics by implementing scripted behaviors.
MakersPlace
MakersPlace showcases digital artwork that is inspired by creator profiles and collections. This homepage includes short films, motion graphics and images of moonscapes, mythic gods, and reimagined statues. Every piece is signed and issued by the creator. The blockchain permanently records and verifies each piece. The site is easy to use thanks to detailed artist profiles, easily trackable ownership records, and searchable tags. You can purchase work through fixed price sales or digital auctions using ether or a standard card credit card. According to NFT-Stats, MakersPlace sold 119 NFTs between October 11-18, 2021 and had a trading volume of $901,700.
GROW.HOUSE
GROW.HOUSE was described in a briefing with Built In as “the first-ever digital metaverse” for fans of cannabis, crypto, and decentralized finance. It uses weed as its main cash crop and is traded in crypto. Branden Hampton, a brand maven who famously created a fake David Chappelle account on Twitter, is leading the development of the game. It uses the Polygon network to allow users to grow cannabis digitally, earn $GROW tokens and purchase NFTs. The company launched its first dex offering (IDO), on June 1. It has received funding from Polygon and Soulja Boy, Juicy Fields, and Aave. GROW.HOUSE will be available once it is live and users can buy cannabis flower NFTs as well as other assets.
Zeptagram
Zeptagram was founded in Stockholm by Christina Lowenstrom & Johan Forsman Lowenstrom. It allows musicians to tokenize their tracks as NFTs, and then sell a portion to investors and fans. Musicians and their supporters can receive royalties for secondary sales through smart contracts. Zeptacoin is the company’s own currency. It can be used to pay royalties or trade music rights on the platform. Offerings by artists like Wylie Ligomeka, Taurai Mudamburi, and Melisha Linnell are now being sold in a crowdsale campaign.
Values
Valuables is a platform created by Cent that allows people to auction off tweets in exchange for ether. You can enter the URL of the tweet or the handle of the user in a search box to place a bid. Unless the seller has established a reserve price, minimum offers are $1. The buyer will be directed to the seller’s Twitter account after placing a bid. From there, they can inform the user that they have made an offer. Here is where Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his autographed first Twitter for $2.9 Million.
