OpenSea Review | The Motley Fool (2024)

OpenSea is the first and largest NFT marketplace. It offers all categories of NFTs, including digital art, collectibles, sports, and virtual worlds. Users can browse collections and buy NFTs, or mint and sell their own.

This marketplace offers cross-blockchain support on Ethereum, Polygon, Klatyn, and Solana. It also has a gas-free marketplace where buying, selling, and creating NFTs are free of the typical blockchain fees.

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Top perks

Extensive selection of NFTs

The most impressive thing about OpenSea is its NFT selection. It has millions of NFTs available, and it regularly has new drops and collections to check out. There's also a lot of variety in what this marketplace offers. You can find everything from fresh pieces by new artists to famous NFT collections, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Great for NFT minting

If you want to create NFTs, OpenSea has an easy minting process. The marketplace's popularity could also help get more eyeballs on your NFT collection. If you're trying to keep fees to a minimum, you can use the OpenSea Collection Manager to mint an NFT collection without any upfront gas costs. You can also set a creator fee of up to 10% that you receive every time an NFT you created is sold.

LEARN MORE: A Complete Guide to Minting NFTs

User-friendly design

NFT marketplaces can be hit or miss in terms of design. OpenSea does well in this area, as it has a quality layout and is easy to navigate. The home page introduces you to the marketplace and some notable pieces, and it doesn't take long to learn how to browse all the NFTs that OpenSea offers.

Reasonable fees

OpenSea keeps fees simple by taking a 2.5% cut of every sale, paid by the seller. That's in line with or better than what many of the best NFT marketplaces charge, as there are competitors with fees of 5% or more.

Educational content

The OpenSea blog is a good source of educational content on NFTs. If you're a beginner, you'll find articles on how to buy NFTs and sell them, keeping yourself safe from scams, and other important topics. The blog also includes news and guest posts from artists behind different collections.

Multiple blockchain and payment options

While some marketplaces only use one network (most often the Ethereum blockchain), OpenSea has cross-blockchain support, so users can buy and sell on four different blockchains. It also accepts multiple types of cryptocurrency as payment.

What could be improved

Large amount of plagiarized content and spam

Perhaps the biggest problem on the OpenSea NFT marketplace is that there's so much stolen content and spam. In January 2022, OpenSea reported that over 80% of the items created using its free minting tool were plagiarized works, fake collections, or spam. It even briefly put a limit on that free minting tool, but then reversed that decision due to user backlash.

OpenSea allows users to report stolen content and tries to remove it as quickly as possible. In some ways, it's a victim of its own success, as its popularity has attracted scammers. Regardless, you need to be more careful about what you buy on OpenSea compared to marketplaces with more carefully curated collections.

Frequent scams

Since it's the largest NFT platform, OpenSea is also a popular target for scammers. There have been numerous attacks, including a phishing attack in February 2022 that resulted in hundreds of stolen NFTs. Any NFTs you buy or create will be stored in your own wallet, so they can't be stolen directly off the OpenSea platform. But it's important to watch out for phishing scams due to how common they are.

Lack of trustworthiness due to insider trading

OpenSea went through a major scandal in September 2021. Several OpenSea users noticed a wallet belonging to Nate Chastain, at the time the marketplace's product head, often purchased NFTs before they appeared on the front page. The wallet then sold those pieces after the price increased.

It was effectively a version of insider trading with NFTs. Chastain resigned, and OpenSea implemented new policies, including one prohibiting employees from using insider information when buying and selling NFTs. While OpenSea has aimed to fix the issue, it's still a mark against its reputation that could take some time to repair.

The OpenSea marketplace is designed for creators to launch digital works and for consumers to trade freely. Here's a breakdown of exactly how it works.

Services

On OpenSea, you can buy, mint, and sell NFTs. It offers several different search options you can use to browse NFTs, including filtering by category, collection, or price. You can also create your own NFTs, mint NFTs without gas fees, and set creator fees to earn revenue every time your NFT is sold.

Blockchains

OpenSea supports the Ethereum, Polygon, Klatyn, and Solana blockchains. Ethereum is the most widely used for NFTs, but each blockchain has its own unique advantages, so it's nice for creators to have multiple options available.

Supported wallets

OpenSea supports the following NFT wallets:

• Metamask
• Coinbase Wallet
• Trust Wallet
• Portis
• Fortmatic/Magic
• Venly
• Authereum
• Bitski
• Dapper
• Kaikas
• OperaTouch
• Phantom
• Glow

It also lets you use the WalletConnect protocol. If you choose this option, you can connect any NFT wallet supported by WalletConnect.

Payment methods

Payments on OpenSea are made in cryptocurrency. The core cryptocurrencies the platform accepts are Ethereum, WETH, Solana, USD Coin, and Dai.

It's not possible to pay using fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar. OpenSea provides the option to buy cryptocurrency with a card payment through MoonPay. We recommend buying on one of the top crypto exchanges, though, because fees on MoonPay are expensive.

Fees

OpenSea has a straightforward fee model and takes 2.5% of every transaction. This fee is deducted from the NFT's sale price.

When you create an NFT on OpenSea, you can set creator fees of up to 10%. You'll receive the creator fee on every sale of that NFT. You can change the percentage at any time.

You can buy practically any type of NFT on OpenSea. Here are the different NFT categories it offers:

• Art
• Collectibles
• Domain names
• Music
• Photography
• Sports
• Trading cards
• Utility
• Virtual worlds

There aren't many NFT marketplaces that can compete with OpenSea in terms of selection. It has NFTs in all the major categories and is the largest marketplace overall.

OpenSea doesn't have the best track record in terms of security and trustworthiness. But any NFTs you buy or mint there are stored in your own wallet, so their security is ultimately in your control.

There were several reports of crimes targeting OpenSea and its clients in 2021 and 2022. That includes a high-profile phishing attack in February 2022, when hackers reportedly stole 250 NFTs and sold them for $1.7 million in Ethereum. One victim filed a lawsuit for $1 million against OpenSea, alleging the marketplace continued to operate instead of shutting down to fix its security issues.

Plagiarism has also been an issue for OpenSea. Although it allows users to report stolen items and delists content that infringes on intellectual property rights, there have been complaints of slow response times.

To be clear, you can use OpenSea with no issues like the majority of its customers. It's important to learn about the common scams so you can avoid them, and to research any NFT you're planning to buy to confirm it's not stolen.

• You want to check out one of the largest NFT selections of any marketplace.
• You're an NFT creator looking for a platform with a fast, easy minting process.