OpenSea vs Rarible

 

OpenSea vs. Rarible

What is NFT? Please read about NFT in my other post https://immtalimm.blogspot.com/2023/08/fungible-and-non-fungible-tokens.html. OpenSea and Rarible are two of the biggest NFT marketplaces. In the following sections, I will derive the differences between the two platforms.

Note: The NFP market is continuously growing, with users from across the globe buying and selling virtual items using their favorite cryptocurrencies. Also, in order to play with the NFT platform along with the cryptocurrencies supported by the two platforms, you need the software wallet MetaMask. Read of the installation guide at https://immtalimm.blogspot.com/2023/08/install-metamask-wallet-on-google-chrome.html.

OpenSea

OpenSea is the world’s first and largest decentralized marketplace for NFTs and crypto collectibles, founded in the year 2017-the platform rose to prominence for its ease of use, unique NFT listings, and large trading volume.

OpenSea boasts of tens of thousands of active traders with an estimated all-time trading volume of $20 billion. The platform is home to some of the world’s most notable and high-demand NFT collections, including Crypto Punks, and Bore Ape Yacht Club. OpenSea supports diverse categories of NFTs including digital collectibles, virtual lands, art, sports assets, music, domain names, and utility NFTs such as membership passes.

Rarible

Rarible describes itself as “Web3’s first aggregate NFT marketplace.” It is a multi-chain, community-centric marketplace for NFTs and digital collectibles.

Users on Rarible are offered a seamless peer-to-peer interface into the NFT market. The platform is keen on decentralization, with its economy and governance regulated by RARI, its native token.

1.     Governance

OpenSea and Rarible operate on the blockchain but quite differ in their governance structure. OpenSea does not operate a decentralized governance model, as its core team, led by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, still make policy decisions for the platform.

Rarible, on the other hand, does offer decentralized governance through its native token, RARI. Active users on Rarible can earn RARI through trading activities. In addition, RARI holders are elevated to stakeholder status, where they can actively contribute to governance decisions, policy changes, and the future of Rarible.

2.     Payment Options

OpenSea offers user the opportunity to pay for NFTs with the support for up to 150 cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum (ETH/WETH), SOL, AVAX, USDC, BNB, and DAI.

Rarible payments are restricted to just ETH, FLOW, XTZ, or MATIC, although the platform has begun to receive payments via credit cards in an attempt to attract mainstream users.

3.    Trading Fees

Users on both platforms must pay a portion of the money earned from the sale of NFTs as a commission. This is in addition to network fees on the associated blockchain.

OpenSea receives 2.5% of the sale price, while Rarible takes 1% each from the buyer and seller for every sale on their marketplace.

Royalty fees for NFT creators also differ. OpenSea’s royalty fee is fixed at 10% while Rarible provides creators the opportunity to receive up to 50% in royalty fees.

4.    Gasless Mining

Gasless mining, also known as lazy minting, affords digital creators the opportunity to mint NFTs without paying network fees. However, remember that all transactions on blockchains attract a network fee that is paid to the network validators responsible for providing the infrastructure for activities on the blockchain.

Gasless minting allows the creator to automatically transfer the responsibility of paying minting fees to the buyer of the NFT or digital collectible. OpenSea and Rarible both have gasless enabled on their platforms.

5.    Security

Both platforms follow the standard blockchain procedures for security, and use ERC-721 and ERC-1155 Ethereum standards for NFTs to verify ownership of digital assets to avoid copyright claims. However, due to their nature of being open marketplaces, it its difficult to guarantee 100% authenticity and copyright claims associated with the NFTs, traded on their platforms.

6.    Ease of Use

Both platforms offer a beginner-friendly interface that makes navigating NFTs and digital collectibles easy. Both have multi-chain integrations; thus, users can explore the NFT ecosystems of multiple blockchains.

7.     Supported Blockchains

OpenSea offers a wide range of cross-blockchain compatibility across several blockchains. They include Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB, Klaytn, Arbitrum, and Optimism.

On the other hand, Rarible supports creators and collectors on Ethereum, Flow, Tezos, Polygon, Solana, and Immutable X blockchains.

 

Note: I am using both the platforms to experiment.