NFT marketplaces are blooming now. Last time I explained how to start your artist’s career at OpenSea. Today we’ll do our best to sell NFT art at top art marketplaces with highest number of traders and the greatest volume of money.
What is NFT art marketplace?
Development of the new NFT niche of business has created a new type of marketplaces. Typically, an art marketplace is where some people sell their artworks and other people can buy them. In more official language this means that buyers and sellers trading in commodities, services, and works of art.
The most important feature of art market is the business model: the prices of artworks are based not on their economical value but on expectations and reputation. This means that there are several factors, which impact on the price tag for a particular art work such as:
- the name of the artist;
- the power of his or her brand;
- amount of time spent to create the artwork;
- material and size;
- hype around specific topic related to artwork.
At the same time, as real life differs from the virtual one, NFT art marketplace is a hybrid of existing markets. Hence, to sell NFT art you need to focus not only on the mentioned aspects but also on:
- unique concept of digital artwork;
- idea of collection as a complete set of the artworks.
Which marketplaces are good to sell NFT art works?
If the first advisor (obviously, Google) does not answer this question properly, then you need to try Dappradar. This is a website, which includes a trusted NFT marketplace list.
You can find here not only the number of active art traders but also the volume of each market. For example, in May 2021, there are 21 listed NFT marketplaces with total number of over 66K daily active traders and transactions for over $9M.
Hence, with the data, provided by Dappradar, today we will try to sell NFT art on the top NFT marketplaces with the largest number of active traders (NBA TopShop) and the biggest volume of earned money (Rarible).
NFT art at NBA Top Shot
On this marketplace you can easily buy, sell and trade NBA moments. However, they are not a piece of video, captured by camera. These NBA moments are nicely packaged highlight clips like trading cards or any other type of entertaining activity.
In fact, NBA Top Shop is a unique NFT marketplace because of its digital assets, gamification and currency.
Best Basketball Shots as Digital Assets
It’s quite unusual but you can’t find any traditional digital artwork there. However, on this NFT marketplace you can trade the basketball’s greatest moments. Obviously, if you are not Darius Garland or other great basketball player, then you cannot be a creator of any moments. However, your role on this website is not trading on your own artworks.
As a digital assets for NFT, the NBA has created hundreds of videos with the best basketball shots like this:
Hence, you have plenty of videos, officially created and sold by NBA but as NFT they are powered by blockchain.
In fact, at NBA Top Shop you are selling and buying cryptocollectibles with the best moments of NBA basketball games. Indeed, the algorithm is intuitive. Firstly, you need to register and buy NFTs and then you can sell your best basketball shots with higher price to other customers of NBA Top Shot.
Gamification of NFTs
There is a strong gamification model, which works as the basis of NBA Top Shop. It uses natural instincts of human and competitive behaviour of basketball fans.
For example, one of the most delicious things about NFTs at NBA Top Shot is Packs. There are two types of packs:
- three moments for $9; or
- five moments for $14.
As of now, due to Beta version of NBA Top Shot, packs drop times varies and is announced randomly. Main channels of information about new drop times – via email subscription and social media. Packs which are “sold out” can be easily found on the website marketplace as separate cards or whole collections.
Not crypto currency?
As of May 2020, you can buy any NFT on NBA Top Shot marketplace only with US dollars. In other words, this means that most of the transactions there are not using crypto.
That’s why there is a question: is NBA Top Shot still an NFT marketplace website? The answer is YES, because:
- It is not a simple online shop. It trades with unique digital assets of videos from NBA games. This is a licensed content and the best example of NFTs.
- This marketplace powerfully utilises blockchain technology Flow. As a result, you can find the details about the traceability of any transaction.
How to buy NFT at NBA Top Shot?
The guide to become a buyer at this NFT marketplace is quite simple:
- Register on the website by creating Dapper account. Spoiler: you need to have email address at gmail.com; they don’t accept any other email providers as of now (May 2021).
Why Dapper? In brief, Dapper is like a PayPal but for Flow. Flow is a blockchain of NBA Top Shot. There are many blockchains and soon we will speak about them in details. However, as of now, you must remember: Dapper is an account manager for all the exciting experiences and apps found on the Flow network either they are related to NFT or crypto. - Choose an asset and put your card details. Important: if you are paying with a US credit card issued by Citizens Bank, Bank of America or PNC, you may receive additional charges. By the way, write to support@meetdapper.com if this happens.
- Finalise the transaction and check your collection. Successful completion takes up to a couple of minutes. However, then you can go to your collection and enjoy the ownership of the moment!
- If you would like to sell your moment – just do it. Again, Dapper will participate in this transaction to bring a bit of blockchain and make magic. ✨
- Finally, ta-da: YOU’RE IN BUSINESS! MOMENT PLACED FOR SALE! This screen will welcome you when your NFT is listed for trading in NBA Top Shot.
Sell NFT art at Rarible
Rarible is one of the top-5 profitable global NFT art marketplaces. It is like OpenSea. And vice versa – OpenSea is like Rarible :). Both of these platforms have started work as commercial NFT trading platforms in approximately the same time. Hence, it will be fair to reference them in such way.
At the same time, there is secret souse behind any money-making business. Hence, for Rarible it is the multiplication of good pricing policy, multi listings and RARI, the crypto token of Rarible.
Good pricing policy for NFTs
If you will compare the prices for gas (vital component of minting (producing) any non-fungible token), then you will see different numbers.
OpenSea has higher prices for gas to make NFT. Indeed, there are many external factors, which impact on the price. However, checking on different dates and time of network load, Rarible has always cheaper prices fo gas for smart contracts to make NFTs.
Multi listings of NFT art collectibles
If you want to create your NFT for art, Rarible offers two options: single or multi listing. They explain: choose “Single” if you want your collectible to be one of a kind or “Multiple” if you want to sell one collectible multiple times.
This option was not available at OpenSea and allows to re-consider decision to list item for sale.
RARI as a governance crypto token
This is something unique behind Rarible. It has its own crypto token. And they declare that RARI stands for “Rarible Governance Token”. In other words, Rarible gives power of key decision on the platform to their users. This is extremely transparent step and they explain it by the need of a tool to empower all parties, which participate in Rarible life.
[…] the best way to align platform development with customers’ interests is to empower the ones who actively interact with protocol: creators and collectors”
Rarible Team
RARI is a portion of endorsement for participation on the marketplace. It is issued every week with equal distribution for NFT buyers and sellers (in other words, fifty-fifty).
With RARI you can have a real influence over the platform development. If community wants it — everything is possible (even to complain about the fees 😋). As a recipient of RARI, the NFT creator or NFT collector can:
- Submit on proposals about:
- Rarible’s trading fees
- its new features to be developed or implemented;
- the use of RARI to further decentralize the governance and development of this NFT art marketplace
- Vote on proposals
- Moderate creators on Rarible
- Curate featured artworks
How to make NFT at Rarible?
The procedure of making non-fungible tokens (so-called “minting NFT”) for art at Rarible is pretty much simple and the same to other platforms:
Step 1 – Create your collectible
There is no separate procedure for registering as NFT creator or NFT collector at Rarible. In other words, when coming to this NFT marketplace you either create collectible or place a bid for NFT art work.
For example, if you come to create your first collectible at Rarible, first of all, you need to choose the price for your listing.
By the way: the difference between “timed auction” and “unlimited auction” is not just about the duration. It’s also about the minimum bid price.
If you choose the fixed-term NFT auction, then you should put this minimum bid. Then, if you’ll have bids below this amount, they won’t be accepted.
One of the promising and sweet moments at most of the NFT art marketplaces – royalty. Royalty is the amount which you will get as the creator, if your NFT artwork will be sold to the next NFT collector. At Rarible you can choose between 10 – 30%.
Finally, after filling all required fields for your future non-fungible token, you need to Create Item and you’ll be transferred to the next page.
Step 2 – Connect your crypto wallet
You can choose among different crypto wallets, available for NFT art trading and which are authorised to work with Rarible:
If you have chosen MetaMask, which is one of most popular for Rarible marketplace, then you will see the following screen upon successful connection of your crypto wallet and digital item for future sale as NFT:
Step 3 – Legal Bits of NFT minting
After this step you need to confirm that you clearly understand the rules of the marketplace. Also, there is an age restriction – you must be 13 or above. Hence, for younger artists their parents and carers can represent their digital masterpieces to sell as NFT art.
Step 4 – Ready, steady, mint… and pay for gas
Then you can finally mint NFT by sending transaction to create unique non-fungible token for your digital asset. On this step you need to pay for gas – it is an obligatory payment for each transaction. You cannot avoid it however, the sum of money, which is paid for gas, varies depending on platform, workload in the particular blockchain.
However, in opposite to NBA Top Shot selling NFT art in Rarible (and OpenSea as well) requires at least a couple of hundreds dollars at starting capital but due to high gas price. For example, at NBA Top Shots you can get one NFT with basketball moment for around $3 including fee. At the same time, for other NFT art marketplaces, you need to pay minimum $30 – 100 for minting your NFT.
Step 5 – Enjoy your NFT art and share it
When you have successfully finished all required steps, you NFT is available to share with your network with expectation of higher bid and wider hype.
Conclusion
You can see by yourself how different are the platforms but how strong is the NFT concept. With each new powerful NFT art marketplace, the ecosystem will become stronger. As a result, now, thanks to NFT and blockchain, we are starting the revolution of ownership and markets.
Selling NFT art at marketplace is a good investment strategy and has quite intuitive user experience.
