The Best NFT Marketplace: OpenSea vs Solanart

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are peaking at the end of Q4 last year and in general, they have been one of the main drivers of the blockchain industry during 2021. Consequently, NFTs are minted and offered in NFT Marketplaces such as OpenSea and Solanart. Of course, there are many other NFT Marketplaces such as Rarible and MagicEden, however, we will be taking a deeper dive into OpenSea and Solanart in this article.

If you would like to learn more about the biggest NFT Marketplaces by volume or what are NFTs, then definitely visit our Blog page where you can read more about what web3 has to offer. Also, our team of elite developers can help you build your own NFT marketplace or assist you with the creation of your very own NFT or DeFi project. Simply, follow this link to get in touch, so we can discuss your ideas.

So what is the best NFT Marketplace? Well, this is more of a question based on what blockchain network is used to deploy an NFT or NFT collection. Obviously, given the popularity of Ethereum, most users would immediately point out that OpenSea is the NFT Marketplace, however, that might not be the case. Solanart has seen a lot of criticism and a lot of praise based on multiple factors which have ultimately turned it into a very self-sustainable platform for listing, selling, and trading NFTs.

To compare both marketplaces, let’s take a look into their characteristics and what they have to offer to NFT collectors alike.  

OpenSea

OpenSea is an NFT Marketplace that allows users to interact with non-fungible tokens which live on the Ethereum and Polygon (Matic) blockchains. Most of all, OpenSea is the first and largest NFT marketplace. Currently, there are more than 23 million NFT items in fluctuation on the market. Users can view trending fungible tokens and exclusive OpenSea drops by just visiting their homepage. These are regularly updated given the number of new projects being released by the hour.

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Once a project is selected, users can view the 4 main characteristics of an NFT collection. Such characteristics include the number of items, the number of owners, the floor price, and the volume traded. Usually, these are some of the key indicators which showcase which products are most likely to be successful. Success can be perceived differently, however, users who are familiar with NFTs would immediately scan the aforementioned characteristics. For example, what is the number of items in a collection. The standard item number of a collection is between 10,000 (CryptoPunks) and 30,000 (Adidas into the Metaverse NFT). However, as of recently, the trend is to lower down collections to smaller amounts such as 8,888 items, 3,333 items, or even 1,000 items. To add information and to provide another example, the number of owners shows how many are the unique owners of a collection item. Users can own multiple tokens, therefore the more owners there are, the more likely it is for the floor price to be influenced.

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After that, a major characteristic would be the token’s floor price. The floor price directly indicates how much a collection is worth. Generally, low floor prices below 0.1 $ETH are deemed to be either unsuccessful or will be less likely to see future engagement. Therefore, NFT Discord channels tend to “raid” OpenSea and to increase floor prices or to “sweep the floor” which translates to buying all of the lowest price listed NFTs and re-listing them for a bigger margin. Also, by clicking on the floor price, the platform automatically arranges the NFTs from the cheapest to the most expensive one (Price: Low to High).

Then, the volume traded shows the volume of the cryptocurrency traded in exchange for token sales or trades. Users can pay attention to the volume traded of any project as this indicates the worth of a project and how many tokens are traded on daily basis. By clicking, the volume traded users can also review and filter out additional options such as details about sales going further back as to one year as well as listings, bids, and transfers.

Overall, OpenSea features multiple filtering options which is a very powerful tool to have for a non-fungible token marketplace. All of the filtering options are easy to use and can be manipulated by beginners and more experienced users. Notably, the filtering option which allows users to filter NFTs by their properties (traits) is one of the best features of OpenSea. By selecting a single trait, users can review all items containing this trait and the percentage (%) of times that have the property. This is important whenever NFT collectors are trying to find the rarest items of a collection. For example, tokens with unique properties can be easily filtered out by simply selecting this functionality.

Benefits using OpenSea

Apart from being the largest and most adopted NFT marketplace, OpenSea has a few very good benefits which have given it a top-tier status. MetaMask wallet is one of the main reasons why users love OpenSea. As we have already discussed what MetaMask wallet is in one of our previous articles, it is easy to see why users tend to visit OpenSea more than other marketplaces. The process is easy and simple. Users can visit www.opensea.io and select the top-right corner icon which will prompt them to connect their MetaMask wallet. After that, the browser extension will ask for confirmation and that is all. The last step would be to start buying or selling NFTs conditional on having enough funds in the wallet.

Nowadays, OpenSea has partnered up with Coinbase Wallet as well as other options which can greatly increase the chances of users to interact with the marketplaces.

In addition to that, another benefit is an integrated bridge to layer-2 Polygon(Matic). Users can use their Polygon digital assets to buy, sell, list, or trade NFTs.

Disadvantages of OpenSea

High gas fees are on the top of the list of disadvantages. However, they are not entirely subject to OpenSea but are a more common issue related to the Ethereum network. Even with MetaMask’s assistance, gas fees are still going to the moon and driving users to pay an absurd amount in gas fees. For example, the typical price to mint an NFT in January 2022 is roughly 0.02 $ETH. At the same time, there is a one-time fee (of 2.5% per item sold) that is also charged, so users can list their NFTs for sale or be auctioned. However, in this case, the fees are charged by OpenSea and are one of the main sources of income for its creators. In contrast, buyers have to pay gas fees only.

Last, but not least of importance disadvantage is the platform’s large number of scam projects which have not been reviewed or fully verified. Scammers tend to list projects on OpenSea before they are minted and this results in beginner traders buying off worthless NFTs and sending funds to malicious addresses. The typical case of such scams includes scammers adding additional letters to the NFT project’s name or by alternating letters. For example, instead of CryptoPunks, you can see ”CryptoPunkz”, “CryptoPunks_”, “CryptoPunks.” etc.

Solanart

Solanart is the next big NFT Marketplace which we will be showcasing. Solanart is based on the Solana blockchain and is newer and has fewer features compared to OpenSea. Regardless, it is still the most famous Solana-based NFT marketplace and has the largest potential when trading with $SOL.

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On Solanart, users can quickly and easily access digital collectibles, and they can explore, buy or sell NFTs from different artists and collections. Even though Solana is a new platform it has similarities to the Binance Marketplace. One of its biggest advantages in the crypto project is its strict involvement criteria for accepting NFT collections, which can provide users with peace of mind that all assets inside Solana are safe. When users buy NFT collections on the Solanart marketplace, they can be sure that the collections are 100% verified. These verifications include information like total quantity and much more similar to OpenSea. The platform also shows its upcoming NFT collections, which helps artists generate interest even before putting their digital assets on sale. Users can rest assured that NFT collections’ claims, such as their total quantity and other necessary information, were already fact-checked by the Solanart team. The platform also shows its upcoming NFT collections, which helps artists generate interest even before putting their digital assets on sale. 

How to connect a DeFi wallet to Solanart NFT Marketplace

The first step in getting started in the Solanart market is setting up a Solana native wallet. Most users recommend using Phantom Wallet (https://phantom.app), one of the most popular NFT crypto-friendly wallets on the Solanart marketplace. Phantom is a DeFi wallet with built-in swap, staking, NFT display, and crypto management capabilities. It’s available on the Solana blockchain and will be expanding to Ethereum as well. This wallet is deemed the best Solana wallet out there. Users can use this wallet to participate in transactions that are based on Solana and to buy various cryptocurrencies and NFTs on NFT Marketplaces that support Phantom. The Phantom Wallet is non-custodial, meaning that users hold their private keys. Therefore, a lot of the Phantom Wallet security lies in the users’ hands and not a 3rd party provider or exchange.

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Additionally, users can visit the chrome extension store and download the Phantom browser extension. However, if Phantom is not the first choice, then Sollet is a very good alternative https://www.sollet.io. It is another recommended wallet for the marketplace.

Once you have downloaded the Phantom browser extension, the next thing is to set up your wallet. You can start by clicking on “Create New Wallet” on the page that appears on the screen. Follow the subsequent steps and set up your wallet.

Advantages of Solanart

The largest advantage of Solanart is the fact it is the largest NFT marketplace by volume when looking at Solana. Competitors such as MagicEden are far behind and this is why Solanart has leverage to dictate how Solana-based can be traded. This is backed up by the quick and easy use of the Phantom wallet which provides swift access to users who wish to interact with the marketplace.

Another advantage is the number of transactions occurring per second on the Solana blockchain. And currently, the market cap of Solana is more than 50 billion USD. Moreover, developers naturally insist that the Solana blockchain is the fastest in the world.

Disadvantages of Solanart

When looking at benefits or advantages we should not turn a blind eye to disadvantages. Especially, Solanart has a fair amount of disadvantages. Perhaps one of the biggest disadvantages to date is that users cannot create their own non-fungible tokens on the platform. Since most collections are reviewed before being submitted, this process massively prevents users from being able to list their own NFT art or NFT creation in general.

That being said, there are not as many projects listed in comparison to OpenSea. The average Daily SOL volume is 10,297 according to the platform’s website. In contrast, OpenSea’s trading volumes have surged past $700M with the massive interest and hype surrounding BAYC.

The final disadvantage could be regarded as the website and the overall user experience. Solanart recently moved from beta to live in the last few moves and this has led to multiple website features and buttons not working. A lot of issues can be seen around the filtering options. Filtering on Solanart is far behind OpenSea’s tools and this provides a poor experience for NFT collectors who are looking for rare properties.

What is the best NFT Marketplace?

To summarize, the best non-fungible token marketplace entirely depends on user preference and desired blockchain network. As we have discussed, the two marketplaces are based on Ethereum and Solana. Therefore, the debate would more or less depend on which currency is better between $ETH and $SOL.

Regardless, OpenSea beats Solanart by a margin when looking at volume traded and mass adoption. This is mostly due to Solanart being in BETA for the last few months and launching much later on than OpenSea. However, Solanart still lacks major functions such as NFT creation and fewer projects being listed. Moreover, the filtering functionalities are somewhat unfinished and the overall user experience is not a pleasant one.

If you have a different opinion and you would like to build your own NFT Marketplace, then please get in touch with our elite team of developers who can help you launch the next NFT project.