If you follow the daily revelations of the internet, you might most definitely have heard either of these two terms this past week – NFT or “Nifties”. Some popular NFTs include the 10-second video that was created by Beeple and sold for $6.6 million, a music video by Grimes lasting 50 seconds that sold for $388,938 among other collectibles that have gone viral recently.

For those of you who are wondering where you can get your hands on your own unique NFTs, we’ve prepared the following post to help you find collectibles across various marketplaces online so that you may buy them with ease. 

What is an NFT Marketplace?

An NFT marketplace is a crypto space where artists can sell their nonfungible art and potential buyers and collectors can own it through a blockchain entry. Before we can explain to you what an NFT Marketplace is, it’s important to know what exactly is an NFT.

Just like any other niche piece of art, NFTs hold their value for being unique and it’s impossible to exchange them with another item of their type. When you buy an NFT, you’ll get a unique digital token that’ll state that you own it and no one else can claim to have the exact same piece of the item with the same features and condition. 

NFTs are created as part of a certain blockchain, most of them belonging to the Ethereum blockchain. A cryptocurrency on Ethereum can store additional information and thus, it supports NFTs, and similar to NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, there can be different versions of NFTs that can be created by other blockchains. 

An NFT Art Marketplace is an online store that punches a unique NFT, creates a digital token for it carrying unique identifiers, and preserves it in its digital locker/wallet. It’s the common ground that connects an NFT creator to that of a buyer or collector. 

The Best NFT Art Marketplaces in 2021

If you’re wondering where you can go through and search for NFTs to buy from or sell, then we’re listing the following marketplaces to help you accomplish it. 

1. Nifty Gateway

Founded by twin brothers Griffin and Duncan Cock Foster, Nifty Gateway is a blockchain-based platform where collectors can buy digital art from sought-after artists like Jon Burgerman, Trevor Jones, Cey Adams, and more. The platform works with artists and brands to create limited-edition collectibles that are dropped at a specific time with a limited purchase period. 

When you purchase a token from Nifty Gateway, they will be listed under your profile and withdraw them to your wallet or an external account. The platform also allows you to import nifties from external wallets into your Nifty Gateway account. Between March and December 2020, Nifty Gateway was able to sell around $11 million+ in NFTs. 

2. OpenSea

Considered the eBay of NFTs, OpenSea lets you buy and sell collectibles and NFTs using blockchain. It’s considered one of the largest marketplaces for digital items, having over 4 million products in its portal. The platform uses Ethereum and interoperable standards like ERC721 and ERC1155 to host your digital asset when you buy one. 

OpenSea’s marketplaces are known to offer all types of user-owned digital goods like digital art, collectibles, domain names, gaming items, and other items that can be purchased with blockchain. 

3. SuperRare

Founded by John Crain, SuperRare is a peer-to-peer marketplace as well as a crypto social space that deals in buying and selling single-edition digital artworks. The artworks are created by well-known artists and the digital collectible can be tracked using blockchain.

When selling your artwork firsthand as a creator, you will get 85% of what the buyer paid for the token with the remaining amount charged as a commission by SuperRare. For secondary sales, creators receive a 10% royalty as a form of passive revenue if the artwork continues to get traded in the market. 

4. MakersPlace

Just like others mentioned in this list, MakersPlace uses blockchain technology so that you possess proof of ownership for your creations and the items you purchase. You can issue limited editions of your digital creations so that others may purchase them and can personally control the scarcity of your creations.

MakersPlace offers creators a 10% royalty as commission every time your art is re-sold on its platform. For every sale, the platform has a 15% take on the value of the sale and there’s an additional 2.9% fee if you make a purchase using a credit card. 

5. Rarible

Rarible can be considered a toned-down and a more casual space than SuperRare. While artists are required to submit their creations for approval, Rarible allows anyone to be listed on its portal. The platform allows you to tokenize your work and create an NFT using an ERC-721 smart contract token hosted on Ethereum. You can create an NFT on rarible.com without actually selling it. 

The tokens you create on Rarible can also be managed on OpenSea and it’s also possible to list your collectibles on the latter in both $ETH and $RARI tokens. Unlike SuperRare, creators can specify their own percentage as royalty for secondary sales. However, it’s important to note that royalties that are set on OpenSea won’t yet be carried over when moving them to Rarible. The company says it’s working to implement a better system for cross-platform royalties. 

6. Atomic Assets

Atomic Assets listings are hosted on WAX, meaning each user is required to sign up for a WAX cloud wallet to buy and sell NFTs. Assets on the platform are backed by EOS and WAX tokens which can only be freed by burning the asset. Well-known collectibles will be marked with a verified checkmark.

One highlight feature of the service is it involves a decentralized fee structure and no single account receives all the fees. Instead, the marketplaces where the item is listed and the one where they’re purchased both get 1% take each. 

7. Decentraland

Decentraland claims to be the first fully decentralized virtual world where users can create and make money on the things they build and own. You can buy and sell virtual lands in Decentraland and personalize them using properties built on top of it and the assets you own will be stored in a smart contract based on Ethereum.  

Lands in the platform are represented in non-fungible ERC-721 tokens and can be purchased in an ERC20-based MANA token. 

8. NBA Top Shot

To capitalize on all the hype around NFTs, NBA has started hosting a collectible marketplace of its own that stores player-based highlights. You can access these highlights by buying packs that can be considered as sports cards in video form and at any given time, there only a handful of limited editions of the same highlight. 

When you buy a highlight from NBA Topshots, you’ll own that clip indefinitely as a collectible. You can purchase any pack from three tiers – Common, Rare, and Legendary and also sell them to make money off of them. 

9. KnownOrigin

KnownOrigin is an artist-driven platform where you can showcase and make money from artworks made by you or the ones you own. Artists will need to create profiles of their own on the platform and all artworks created by them are tokenized and stored on an IPFS storage solution. Because of this, all artworks created by someone can be traced using blockchain by anyone.

When you make a sale as an artist on the platform, KnownOrigin will get 15% goes as commission and you will get to keep the remaining 85% of sale value with yourself. For sales after this primary sale, the artists will get a 10% take, KnownOrigin will get 3% of the transaction, and the seller will get 87% of the sale value. 

10. TreasureLand

TreasureLand is like any other NFT marketplace but it differs from the rest in the market for being based on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) instead of Ethereum. BSC-based NFTs offer low fees, more reliability and speed and can be tokenized with BEP-721, and BEP-1155 identifiers. 

The service offers an open ecosystem where anyone can create an NFT, mine it, sell it firsthand, and then trade it. You also have the option to buy items using other cryptos. 

11. NFT ShowRoom

NFT Showroom is a Hive blockchain-based NFT marketplace that claims to be easy to use and is an affordable alternative for creators, and collectors. This is because Hive is a fee-less blockchain system that is available globally and utilizes the SWAP.HIVE token for creating smart contracts. The platform also gives creators two options to create tokens – Private and Limited Reproduction Rights. 

When you create an NFT on NFT ShowRoom, you will be charged 5 SWAP.HIVE + 1 SWAP.HIVE per edition. NFT Showroom will charge you a 10% commission when you sell your art for the first time. For secondary sales, the platform collects a 5% commission and gives 5% to the original artist. You can also gift your NFT creation to anyone who has a HIVE account. 

12. Arkane Market

For the unestablished, Arkane Market is the very first Matic NFT marketplace and is different from others mentioned in this post. That’s because it’s primarily a marketplace for game creators who wish to monetize their game by converting assets in your game into NFTs.

Besides MATIC, Arkane Market also supports Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain-based tokens for transactions on its platform. The platform recently partnered with Altitude Games for the release of Battle Racers where you can build, design, race NFT cars, and manage its parts. As for the fees, Arkane is will charge you 2% per sale for all sales during the beta launch of the service. Post beta, you will be charged 4% by Arkane every time you sell your items primarily and 1% when sold in the secondary market. 

13. Axie Marketplace

Axie Marketplace is a store that’s created specifically for the Axie Infinity game, which is a virtual pet universe consisting of different pets or “Axies”. You can collect Axies, raise them, train them, and battle others’ Axies inside the game. Each Axie with different body parts that have their own battle power and combinations. Axie Marketplace charges a 4.25% marketplace fee from the seller during every sale. 

Inside the Axie Marketplace, players can auction their Axies and sell them and all this data is stored on the Ethereum blockchain. There is an upcoming game mode on the platform labeled as “Land” that will unlock further features for Axie related assets. Axie says it isn’t just one game, but an entire universe of games where you can play, sell or trade your Axie NFTs. 

14. YellowHeart

To distinguish itself from others, YellowHeart is fully musical-centric allowing purchases of authentic digital tickets. The platform was recently in the news when Kings of Leon released their latest album “When You See Yourself” as an NFT.

YellowHeart says it will distribute vinyl in equal amounts to the NFTs you bought during the sale period. You can then redeem the NFT by downloading the song’s MP3 file and once redeemed, you won’t be able to sell it to someone else. 

What do you need to know before buying at NFT Art Marketplace?

Before you attempt to buy an NFT across any marketplace we listed above, you will need to know the following things about it:

  • You need some kind of cryptocurrency to buy an NFT from a marketplace, in most cases, something that’s native to Ethereum.
  • For any purchases you make, you will be charged a transaction fee of the total amount you’re paying for the NFT item. A marketplace will levy different commission rates for primary and secondary sales of artwork. 
  • For every item you purchase on a marketplace, you will receive a token that acts as a unique identifier. 
  • You can transfer your NFTs between different marketplaces provided they’re based on the same blockchain. 
  • When you sell an NFT you purchased you will be charged a royalty fee that you will pay to the original artist. 
  • You can increase the value of your NFT by buying items from the same collection to cause scarcity. 

How to buy on an NFT Art Marketplace

Buying NFTs is pretty similar to all the marketplaces we talked about in this post. For keeping it simple, we’ll explain how you can buy the desired NFT on Nifty Gateway. To purchase an NFT, you will need to create an account on an NFT Marketplace using your name, email address, and phone number.

Once you have created an NFT Marketplace account, you will need to validate it by confirming the details you entered. 

Before making a purchase on a marketplace, you will need to fund your account by adding your credit card credentials or filing it up with Ethereum tokens. You can purchase Eth tokens from any one of these exchange providers – Coinbase, Binance, Gemini, or eToro. 

An optional step before buying an NFT is getting your hands on an Ethereum wallet with ERC-721 token support. Wallets can either be physical or software-based and prevent your collectibles from getting hacked. Most marketplaces support digital wallets from MetaMask and TrustWallet, both of which support buying various cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRON, XRP, and more. 

Once you have set up your wallet, you can buy some Ethereum or relevant crypto using your debit card or other wallets. 

After you have bought the necessary amount of ETH tokens, you can go ahead and shop at an NFT marketplace of your choice and buy your desired item using the Ethereum you have with you. When buying art, items, or assets, it’s important that you know when something you’re interested in is dropping at the chosen marketplace.

This is the most important step as it’s up to you to determine which NFT is valuable and should be purchased. Always look for items created by established artists and gather information over an item’s copyrights and royalty fees. 

That’s it. You’re ll set to step over to the land of NFTs, so go ahead and buy one and trade them to maximize your earnings in the digital content realm. 

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