OpenSea remains the largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace by all-time volume and its reaction in the first week of April after its first-quarter lows show that the development team behind the project is committed to reclaiming its crown as the biggest NFT platform by monthly volume.
OpenSea launched OpenSea Pro, an advanced NFT marketplace on April 4, an official blog post by the company confirmed.
OpenSea Pro with its features will be targeting professional NFT traders, a sector of the digital collectibles economy that continues to see significant growth which will help the platform compete squarely with Blur, another NFT marketplace which has become OpenSea’s primary rival.
OpenSea Pro: What does the new NFT marketplace offer?
OpenSea Pro unlike its original version will introduce a new level of control, selection, and optionality for professional NFT collectors. Collectors will be able to access the best deals and insights across 170 marketplaces through its suite of features.
Aside from this, NFT enthusiasts will have access to more sophisticated tools that will meet their trading needs.
The advanced features unique to OpenSea Pro are live cross-marketplace data, advanced orders, powerful inventory management, instant sales, optimized gas fees, and mobile compatibility.
Other features potential users of the platform will be coming across comprise batch transfer, live mints overview, and watchlist.
To compete with Blur which has seen billions of dollars in volume in just five (5) months of joining the industry, OpenSea Pro will be operating with 0% fees, a cache used by X2Y2 to dethrone OpenSea for some months during 2022, and employed by Blur to become the number one platform for most digital art lovers in 2023.
OpenSea Pro: Will the new marketplace help the platform reclaim its crown
OpenSea has been able to maintain itself as the number one NFT marketplace with approximately $34 billion in all-time sales despite the stiff competition from Blur and X2Y2 over the past year.
While Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea has downplayed the competition with other platforms, the investment in high-quality features that will ease the exploration and purchase of NFTs on its marketplace is geared towards dominating the market again like it used to.
Many analysts believe that OpenSea’s $1.03 billion in Q1 2023 was a wake-up call to an obsolete platform that was rightly replaced with a new one that seemed to have given traders what they wanted in an NFT marketplace.
After being dwarfed by Blur by more than $1.4 billion in Q1 2023 volume difference, the changes in its free structures and other features could help OpenSea relive some of its glorious moments where it generated around $50 million as minimum daily volume.
The metaverse market has been forecasted to bring revenues of $1.42 billion by 2031 with companies such as Meta Platforms Inc., Tencent Holdings Limited, Nvidia Corporation, Roblox Corporation, The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Microsoft Corporation highlighted as prominent players in helping attain this valuation.
Since most metaverse-related activities are minted into NFTs, a platform such as OpenSea Pro will make an invaluable contribution to the success of the transition from Web2 to Web3.
Will the NFT marketplace competition push volumes to new all-time highs (ATH)?
With an NFT marketplace war on the horizon, Islam Shazhaev, the Chief Business Development Officer (CBDO) at blockchain-based gaming project Farcana has weighed in on the future of NFT marketplaces.
He told Metanews, “Just as we have it in the mainstream world, innovators drive to beat dominance in the digital currency ecosystem and join the healthy competition. The launch of OpenSea Pro in response to the growth recorded by Blur is one example – and we are bound to see many more examples shortly. Nevertheless, the success of NFT marketplaces lies not only in dominating competitors but also in the collectors’ interest.”
“What will be most instrumental in driving volumes to a new all-time high is the launch of digital arts with a viable utility and benefit for users. Ultimately, it is the marketplace with the majority of these projects that will win the dominance war in the long term,” he added.
and then