Key Takeaways
- NFT marketplaces are often specialized, with some focused on fine art and others on popular collections. This means the best NFT marketplaces will differ based on your needs.
- NFT aggregators bring in listings from other marketplaces. Many of the top marketplaces are also aggregators.
- Platforms like Blur and OpenSea Pro are standout picks for buying and selling top NFT collections, largely due to their scope and market analytics tools.
The NFT (non-fungible tokens) craze shows no signs of slowing, with about $25 billion in NFTs traded annually. How can you get in on the digital-art action? Often the answer is to choose specialized NFT platforms that focus on a certain segment. We’ve gathered the best NFT marketplaces for various segments, ranging from art and collectibles to gaming and sports.
We’ll also explore NFT aggregators, sites that gather NFT listings from the far reaches of the internet, bringing you options you might not have discovered otherwise.
Let’s explore the best NFT marketplaces.
What’s An NFT Marketplace?
An NFT marketplace is an app or website where you can buy or sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs).OpenSea is likely the best-known example, but there are several direct competitors and a growing number of specialized NFT websites, like NBA Top Shot, the go-to source for NBA clips immortalized in NFT form.
NFT marketplaces provide a digital gallery for independent creators and NFT companies while giving buyers the ability to search and browse listings. More powerful NFT trading platforms, like Blur, give traders and collectors powerful insight into pricing trends for top NFT projects.
Marketplaces give order to the chaos of NFTs, gathering digital assets from countless crypto wallets in one place.
Best NFT Marketplaces
- Foundation Marketplace: Best NFT marketplace for artists
- Blur:Best for traders and high-value collectors
- Rarible: Best for low-cost NFT minting
- OpenSea: Best NFT marketplace for beginners
- SuperRare: Best for high-end NFT art
- Nifty Gateway: Best for secured NFT art
- LooksRare: Best NFT platform for crypto rewards
- ThetaDrop: Best for entertainment NFTs
- NBA Top Shot: Best for sports fans
| Foundation Marketplace | Ethereum | 15% on drops5% on secondary sales | Digital art | 670 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blur | Ethereum | 0.5% minimum creator royalty (paid by buyer) | Collectibles Collections Metaverse | 14,000 |
| Rarible | Ethereum Solana, Tezos, Polygon, Immutable X | 1% buyer1% seller | Collectibles Collections Metaverse | 65,000 |
| OpenSea | Ethereum, Polygon, Klaytn, Solana, Abritrum, Optimism, Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain | 2.5% | Collectibles Collections Metaverse Gaming Art Sports Photography | 47,000 |
| SuperRare | Ethereum | 15% | Digital art | 128 |
| Nifty Gateway | Ethereum, Polygon, Immutable X | 10% +$0.30 | Digital art Collectibles | 10 |
| LooksRare | Ethereum | 0.5% | Collectibles Collections Metaverse | 42 |
| ThetaDrop | Theta | 10% | Entertainment Celebrities Collectibles Collections | 283 |
| NBA Top Shot | EthereumFlow | 5% | Sports | 7,500 |
How We Chose
We weighed a number of criteria when building our NFT marketplace list, including ease of use, specialization, reputation, features, and more.
- Ease Of Use: Not every NFT marketplace is easy to use (but should be). A few on our list even flunked the newbie-user test, but they stood out in enough other areas to make the list.
- Specialization: We made sure to include a few NFT marketplaces that were doing something different, such as a focus on fine art or entertainment NFTs.
- Reputation: We reviewed community feedback to avoid questionable NFT websites.
- Features: We evaluated the features of each NFT platform to understand how each feature helps buyers and sellers – as well as things that could be improved.
Other NFT Marketplaces
Several Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains, like Solana and Polygon, support NFTs. Most of the NFT action is still on the Ethereum network — as are the top NFT marketplaces. But if you prefer another network, you have some outstanding options.
Solana NFT Marketplaces
- Magic Eden
- SolSea
- Hyperspace (aggregator)
Polygon NFT Marketplaces
Cardano NFT Marketplaces
NFT Marketplace Aggregators
An NFT aggregator is an app or website that gathers NFT listings from other NFT protocols. Many of the big-name platforms, like Blur and OpenSea, offer aggregated listings in addition to their own listings. This feature is particularly useful if you’re looking for an NFT from a collection that’s listed on another website. NFT aggregators let you do all or most of your shopping in one place.
Examples
- Blur: The hugely popular Blur NFT platform brings in listings from OpenSea and LooksRare, displayed alongside NFTs listed on Blur.
- OpenSea Pro: OpenSea recently acquired Gem, a popular NFT aggregator. The newest version of Gem is now OpenSea Pro, a full-featured aggregator with features to rival powerhouse platforms like Blur.
- Uniswap: You might know Uniswap as the largest decentralized exchange (DEX). But Uniswap is also a great way to shop for NFTs. Uniswap integrated Genie, another well-known NFT aggregator, making finding NFTs as easy as finding tokens you want to swap.
Tips For Choosing A Marketplace
- Consider Fees: Selling fees typically only affect sellers, but unless you plan to keep the NFTs you buy forever, that includes you. Also, some marketplaces enforce creator royalties, a cut of the sales price that goes back to the creator. Others don’t. Consider whether royalties are important to you and check to see if you can set your own. Blur, for example, requires a minimum 0.5% creator royalty, but the suggested royalty will be much higher on some collections.
- Contract Security: Behind the HTML, many NFT marketplaces are smart contracts — computer code running on the blockchain. Look for information on audits for smart contracts used on the platform. Crypto audits are code checks done by third-party audit companies. For example, Blur published the results of the audit completed by Debaub in the Blur docs.
- Cross-Listing Options: When selling, can you list on other marketplaces at the same time? If so, there’s usually an extra cost in gas fees, but it may be worth it for the extra exposure.
- Specialization: Fine art NFT might get lost on some NFT platforms, creating a problem for buyers who can’t find what they want easily and sellers or creators who become invisible. Look for NFT marketplaces well-matched to the type of NFTs you’re selling.
- Traffic: If an NFT is listed on a low-traffic website, is it still for sale? Well, yes, but it might never be found. You’ll still pay the listing fee, though. You’ll have better odds selling on a platform with more users and might even get a higher price when selling.
- Supported Blockchains: It can be expensive to move NFTs from one blockchain to another, so they usually live on the blockchain on which they were created forever. Check to be sure your blockchain is supported before connecting wallets, filling out forms, or completing email signups.
- Payment Methods: Some buyers are happy to pay in ETH or whichever crypto is supported by the NFT’s blockchain. Others may be new and only understand dollars. Platforms like OpenSea and Nifty Gateway make purchases easier for newbies who have some cash to spend — but little or no crypto.
Should You Buy NFTs?
- You should buy NFTs if you like the NFT you’re buying. NFTs aren’t always investments. Maybe you just want one for a PFP (Profile Pic) or to support an artist. We each have our own reasons for clicking the buy button.
- You should buy NFTs if you’ve done your research first. Once you climb a little higher up the price ladder, it makes sense to research the market for the NFTs you’re considering. NFT platforms like Blur and OpenSea Pro offer more insight into market trends and demand at certain price levels.
Benefits And Risks Of Buying NFTs
NFTs are unique assets, even if they are part of a set. That’s what non-fungible (token) stands for: one isn’t the same as the next, as is the case with standard cryptocurrency tokens. That uniqueness brings some benefits, but there are also some risks to consider.
NFT Benefits
- Proof Of Ownership: In this NFT marketplace list, we focused on art and NFT collections. These are digital assets, and the NFT held in your wallet is your proof of ownership. But as the NFT market evolves, you’ll see other types of NFTs, such as property deeds and other applications. Again, the NFT is your proof of ownership.
- Easy Transfers: Think about how difficult it can be to sell high-value items in the analog world. Often, there are titles, deeds, and even contracts. NFTs can simplify all of this. You can sell an NFT of any value with just a few clicks without ever meeting the buyer.
- Cannot Be Manipulated: The same blockchain that protects crypto from being manipulated also removes the risks of manipulated NFTs. The metadata is unique to each transaction, and the transactions are immutable, meaning that the data entered into the ledger is irreversible.
- Scarcity: With NFT art or music collectibles, the collections are generally issued in short-run or limited supply. This makes certain items scarce, which, in turn, helps increase their value over time. That’s not the case for every NFT, of course, but the reason why collectors flock to them is that there’s a higher-than-average chance of the scarcity causing an uptick in value.
- Potential To Earn Royalties: The blockchain provides a clear ledger of transactions that occur, which means that there’s a chance to earn NFT royalties on the secondary sale of these items, especially when it comes to artwork or music. For example, should the owner of the rights for exclusive NFT music want to allow for secondary use of a song, they could approve the use and collect royalties — and the blockchain ledger allows them to prove that they are the ones who should be earning the royalties.
NFT Risks
- Prices Might Fall: Some people have traded NFTs for a profit — but many are underwater or have sold for a loss. What’s hot today might not be hot tomorrow, especially with so many new projects and collections coming to market.
- Hacking/Phishing Targeting: If you buy or sell a high-value NFT, the wallet address for the transaction is now publicly available. It’s on the blockchain. This settlement transparency is how crypto works, but now someone knows you have money, and you could become a target for people who want to deanonymize the wallet to find out who you are. If they can identify you or your IP address, you can become a target for phishing or hacking attempts. The same risk exists for any large transactions or wallet balances.
- Smart Contract Risks: Many NFT marketplaces are just a wrapper for a smart contract, a computer program running on a crypto network. Programs can have bugs or vulnerabilities. Be especially careful with apps that require you to deposit funds on the platform before making a purchase. For example, Blur requires a deposit to make bids on NFTs. Blur has been audited, but there are no guarantees when it comes to contract safety.
To Sum It Up
Many NFT platforms specialize in a certain type of NFT. If you’re shopping for fine art, you might not find what you’re looking for on the largest platforms, and if you’re looking for Bored Apes, you won’t find them on SuperRare, which specializes in fine art. Find an NFT platform to call home based on your market — but be aware that you might need more than one.
Frequently Asked Questions
NFTs themselves are safe. However, we can't say that NFTs are a "safe investment," because there is no real way to know this. The NFT is a record on the blockchain that says the asset belongs to a certain wallet address. The risks that come with NFTs usually involve wallet safety concerns like shared computers or compromised wallet seed phrases.
According to the NY Times, most people lose money on NFTs. The same can be said of cars, however, or furniture in your home. The difference is that very few cars will ever appreciate in value, whereas some NFTs can increase in value significantly. Modern NFT marketplaces like Blur give more insight into NFT markets and demand, possibly leading to more profitable trades as traders learn to use these tools to their full potential.
While the Ethereum blockchain is the main blockchain used for NFT minting, there are actually a few different blockchain options users can choose from. In addition to ETH, Solana, Tezos, Binance Smart Chain, and a few others also support NFTs, and these other options can be more affordable compared to the high gas fees users pay to transact on the Ethereum blockchain. Another option is Flow, which is a newer blockchain that originated in 2019 but is built as a scalable, high-performance blockchain geared toward creating NFTs and decentralized apps.
Blur offers real-time price updates and three user-configurable gas settings that let you act quickly when the competitive stakes are high. OpenSea Pro mirrors many of Blur’s features, making both platforms worth considering when you’re competing against other buyers.
If you’re a trader or serious collector, you’ll want to visit Blur. While the features of OpenSea’s newly launched Pro platform parallel many of Blur’s features, Blur will have some listing that you won’t find elsewhere, including NFTs from top projects like Bored Apes, Pudgy Penguins, Moonbirds, and others. If you want a simpler alternative, you can consider Rarible or Nifty Gateway.
Yes, tax loss harvesting NFTs is possible. You can do this with the help of crypto tax software to help offset capital gains taxes.