5 NFT marketplaces that could topple OpenSea in 2022

OpenSea has been the dominant decentralized platform for users looking to mint, buy, sell and trade nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Serving more as an NFT aggregator than a gallery, OpenSea locked in $3.25 billion in volume for December 2021 alone, according to data from Dune Analytics and from December 2020 to December 2021, the total volume increased by a whopping 90,968%.

No stranger to contention and criticism, OpenSea has had its fair share of perils and pitfalls. Most notably, its former head of product, Nate Chastain, found using insider information to front-run and profit from selling the platform’s front page NFTs.

Adding to the overall feeling of distrust, the community felt devalued after newly appointed chief financial officer (CFO) Brian Roberts hinted at going public. However, he quickly reaffirmed that OpenSea has no intention to go public anytime soon.

OpenSea might be the top NFT marketplace by transaction volumes at the moment, but in 2022, there are bound to be a handful of competitors aiming to unseat the giant.

Here are five NFT marketplaces that could potentially shake the top contender from its spot in the coming months ahead. 

Coinbase NFT

Coinbase seems to be leaning on elements of centralization as the primary driver for mass adoption. Tapping into the growing popularity of NFTs, Coinbase rivals OpenSea in launching its NFT marketplace, Coinbase NFT. According to reports, the waitlist has exceeded 1.1 million, which is more than OpenSea’s total active user-base alone. 

Announcing its launch of Coinbase NFT was a signal that captured the increasing value NFTs could capture as digital collectibles continue to go mainstream. Understanding how NFTs bridge culture and commerce, Coinbase NFT is likely to shake up the order of things. Meanwhile, the project has established partnerships with collections like World of Women, DeadFellaz and Lazy Lions. 

While the marketplace has not yet launched, its waitlist alone suggests that many investors are either eager to gain exposure to the technology for the first time or want alternatives to what they already use.

It gives us great pride to announce our partnership with the Kings and Queens of the Lions Den. We love us some @LazyLionsNFT. #ROAR pic.twitter.com/5Od1d77dPm

— Coinbase NFT (@Coinbase_NFT) December 7, 2021

Based on a statement made by Coinbase, Coinbase NFT will be peer-to-peer (P2P) “…with an intuitive design built on top of a decentralized marketplace.” Initially following the ERC-21 and ERC-1155 standards, the product also has plans to support multi-chains in the future. 

Coinbase NFT will primarily function as a marketplace, but the company has hinted that it will also serve as a place to “foster connections.” To date, Coinbase operates in over 100 countries and reports over 73 million active users while Coinbase’s clients quarterly trade $327 billion in volume, proving that there is a decent amount of liquidity in circulation.

More than the amount of volume trading, Coinbase touts its robust user experience (UX) and seamless user interface (UI) design that is streamlined and user-friendly. Even though many take to Twitter and complain about OpenSea’s UX/UI design, many other platforms come with barriers to entry, whereas OpenSea doesn’t. 

FTX NFTs 

Contrary to Coinbase NFT, FTX marketplace launched in October with a small collection of Solana-based NFTs, and it expanded its collection toward those on the Ethereum blockchain. Unlike OpenSea and Coinbase NFT, FTX NFTs is not a P2P platform, meaning it is centralized and custodial, whereby users’ data is recorded and stored on its particular network. This means users and collectors forgo ownership in some sense. 

The implications of it being a centralized platform are that the platform tends to enforce less autonomous perks to its owners and more restrictions and limitations due to securities laws concerns. Unlike OpenSea where users have full autonomy over their digital assets up until the sale, FTX NFTs implements bidding mechanisms. ​​As Brett Harrison, President FTX.US explained in a statement: “By not requiring gas for doing things like bids, we’re going to see a lot more price action and price discovery on the platform, and we hope that in general attracts liquidity,” 

Its law-abiding ways caused such a strong influence across the Solana NFT collections that many had to revoke their formerly promised royalties since FTX NFTs announced it no longer would support projects granting its owners such a perk. 

The consequence came as a result of United States regulatory concerns. Projects on the Ethereum network are also vetted to make sure they are abiding by securities laws and to ensure they are not counterfeit knockoffs. 

As such, OpenSea retains its value as it maintains quite the breadth of NFT collections.

Solana nft devs
Last week: “We need to add royalties to our project”

This week: “No…