How do I Sell NFT on OpenSea? 20 Tips
As articulated over at runrex.com, OpenSea is a decentralized non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace for buying, selling, and trading NFTs. Given that it brands itself as the biggest marketplace for digital goods, it is worth taking a closer look at OpenSea and what the platform is all about when it comes to the trading of NFTs. Through the following 20 tips, this article will look to highlight what OpenSea is and how you can sell NFT on the platform.
OpenSea is the first NFT marketplace
Launched in 2017, OpenSea is touted as the first and largest NFT marketplace, and according to guttulus.com, you can find all sorts of unique digital items on the platform from digital art and collectibles to game items, domain names, and even digital representations of physical assets. It is like an eBay for NFTs with millions of assets organized into hundreds of categories.
OpenSea and the principle of minimal trust operation
It is important to note that trading on OpenSea is a minimal trust operation. As discussed over at runrex.com, this means that you don’t need to trust that your counterpart will behave honestly, nor do you need to trust OpenSea. Your transactions will rely on technology and not reputation, as well as on smart contracts rather than on third-parties.
Transactions on OpenSea are “atomic”
Additionally, as the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com point out, transactions on OpenSea are “atomic”, which means that the whole deal happens or none of it does. The typical contractual agreement of “if you do this, I’ll do that” occurs regardless of which party has to step out and act first. On eBay, for example, the buyer has to pay the seller before they ship the goods. However, on OpenSea, both seller and buyer make a binding promise to transact at a specific price, and when the promises pair up with each other, the deal takes place in a single transaction. If the deal goes sour, it is like it never happened and neither party is left holding the bag.
OpenSea and the “Wyvern Protocol”
The situation explained in the previous tip is made possible by the fact that OpenSea uses what is called the “Wyvern Protocol”, which is a suite of smart contracts that have been audited and battle-tested in real-world usage. The Wyvern Protocol enables users to swap state changes such as an NFT ownership state for a cryptocurrency ownership state, which means that when a seller sells an NFT, it transfers to the buyer instantly.
Web 3.0 Wallets
To participate in any NFT marketplace, including OpenSea, you will need a wallet like MetaMask. Your wallet will be like a tool to interact with the blockchain and something you will need to buy and sell on OpenSea as well.
Connecting to OpenSea
After you set up your wallet as explained over at runrex.com, the next step is to connect to OpenSea and unlock it, which will allow you to see any owned assets on your OpenSea account page. Just make sure that you have some ETH to pay for your items and gas costs. ETH is used to pay for gas fees and is the default currency on OpenSea.
OpenSea Bundles
While most buyers and sellers on NFT marketplaces deal with single items, sellers can bundle up to 30 items in a listing, with this cap at 30 items having to do with gas limits, Ethereum blocks, trust minimization, and single transactions according to guttulus.com. Bundles are a popular way for sellers to drive revenue, and these types of sales are growing steadily.
OpenSea Listings
When you are ready to sell, you will have 3 options for listing your items which are covered in the following 3 tips:
Fixed Price Listings
As explained in detail over at runrex.com, this listing is the typical “buy it now” scenario similar to an Amazon listing. Here, the seller sets the price and keeps the item listed until it’s purchased or the seller decides to cancel it.
English Auction Listings
An English auction is simply like an eBay auction. Here, a seller sets a minimum price and hopes the bids climb so far that he/she can accept the highest one. Sometimes, a good strategy is to start the bidding at $0 to get the buzz going amongst buyers. Additionally, to prevent a listing from selling too low, OpenSea offers the reserve price feature. With this listing, sellers remain in control as they can accept the highest bid whenever they are ready to sell.
Dutch Auction Listings
Also known as Declining Price Listings, here the strategy is to establish a price higher than the market value and let the price decline over time. To set up a Dutch auction, sellers need to set a starting price, ending price, and a duration. Once the price lowers to meet a buyer’s valuation, they can snatch it up instantly, with the strategy being to get the sale while the item is still above market price.
Which items fit which selling strategy?
According to guttulus.com, Fixed Price Listings and Dutch auctions are typically best for selling lower-ticket items while higher-priced items tend to do better in English-style auctions. Regardless of which type you choose; the process is the same as you will need to select your item and click on the “sell” button.
OpenSea and gas-free transactions
As revealed over at runrex.com, OpenSea also offers gas-free transactions when the highest bidder gets an NFT on an English auction. Here, neither the buyer nor seller has to pay the gas to execute these transactions – although one has to wonder how long this will continue given the expensive gas costs on Ethereum presently.
Privacy of your listing
While your listing is public by default, the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com point out that you can change it to private by simply togging the privacy switch. By doing so, your listing will still be visible to the public, but only the specified address can buy it.
You won’t be locked in
In addition to the privacy feature, it is also worth noting that you will not be locked in after listing on the OpenSea NFT marketplace. This is because there are options to cancel the listing, reduce the price, or even add another listing.
OpenSea Fees
OpenSea boasts that it has the lowest fees in the NFT space, and it takes only 2.5% of the sales price. This fee is low in comparison to other platforms that take up to 7.5%. Also, there is no service fee for buyers, while others charge up to 3% on top of the sale price. Traditional auction websites are also known to take up to 12% of profits.
Other marketplaces
As is articulated in discussions on the same over at runrex.com, if you have NFTs from other marketplaces, you can still list them on OpenSea, so long as they are in your wallet, which is an important thing to know about.
Custom currencies
OpenSea has over 200 payment options available. According to guttulus.com, you can change the crypto you will accept when selling, and this includes stablecoins. As already mentioned earlier, ETH is the default, and OpenSea converts ETH to wETH, but other tokens are available, including DAI and USDC stablecoins, wBTC (which is an acronym for Wrapped Bitcoin), MANA (which is Decentraland’s in-game currency), REVV and SAND (which are also in-game currencies), MEME (which is part of the Meme collection), WHALE (which is a social token), as well as the fact that customized ERC20 tokens can also be added as an alternative payment option.
How OpenSea attempts to tackle fraud
The OpenSea team works hard to keep their users from getting ripped off by scammers, which is a big issue on OpenSea as discussed over at runrex.com. Well-known accounts with a positive track record get a blue checkmark next to their collections. OpenSea also adds extra layers of verification with creator addresses posted above item descriptions. Users can also flag fake and inappropriate NFTs.
Gas will only be required initially
If you are new to OpenSea, you will need to run a few transactions and pay gas to give the exchange contracts access to your items. After that, listing items for sale doesn’t require gas – just a digital signature from your wallet to approve the listing.
OpenSea’s mint feature
Finally, if you are an artist, content creator, musician, or just about anyone with a digital item that you want to mint into an NFT and sell, the OpenSea’s mint feature might be a good match. To get started, head over to the OpenSea Collection Manager and set up your account. Just as is the case with becoming a seller of existing NFTs, setting up for minting does require some gas. If you have a lot of items to mint, it would be smart to wait until gas prices are low.
Hopefully, the above discussion will help you know how you can go about selling NFTs on OpenSea, with more on this topic to be found over at the excellent runrex.com and guttulus.com.