With the NFT market hitting a bit of a slump at the moment, the importance of picking the right NFT marketplace to get you started on minting and collecting your NFTs is at a critical point. As NFTs and Metaverse became the buzzwords of 2021, ushering in the era of Web3, we saw the market quickly becoming saturated with Crypto-exchanges and NFT platforms. This has proven to be taxing for all those who are looking to explore and join the NFT community, as they are overwhelmed by all the choices out there. 

In this blog, using my experience with all the major NFT marketplaces, I will take a look at some of these prominent platforms and provide you with the pros and cons of using them.  

OpenSea 

OpenSea is the Coinbase of the NFT world, since it is the most popular and recognizable platform out there when it comes to NFTs. It has been steadily expanding since 2017 and seems to be the first stop for all NFT starters who are looking to understand the market and its offerings. 

Pros:  

• Opensea has a user-friendly interface that makes it easier for beginners to learn the ropes of creating and minting their NFTs. 
• The platform supports all kinds of file formats, allowing various types of digital collectibles such as images, videos, audio etc. to be minted into NFTs. 
• It accepts a wide variety of cryptocurrencies which prevents users from being bound to one currency and facilitating NFT liquidity  

• The gas fees are minimal compared to some of the other platforms, making it affordable for independent artists to mint their NFTs 

Cons: 

• Like any widely used marketplace, it can be hard for your work to standout amongst the millions of listings from registered users. This platform is ideal for someone who has a substantial following on other social media platforms, and they direct their followers to their OpenSea profile to view their NFT offerings. 
• The customer support has been a recurring improvement point for the platform, as the support offered to the users leaves much to be desired. 

FTX 

FTX is one of the competitors of Opensea and even though both the platforms offer a wide range of options when it comes to NFTs, FTX also doubles as a centralized trading platform due to its various investment offerings. FTX gives its users access to cryptocurrency trading, margin accounts, crypto derivatives and digital asset custody services; a bonus for anyone looking to trade NFTs while also seeking to take advantage of centralized exchanges.  

Pros 

• The biggest advantage that a user gets from this platform is the wide variety of investment options that it provides, on top of being a growing NFT marketplace. 
• The gas fees charges are low compared to its competitors. 
• There are no minimum cryptocurrency requirements to start trading on the platform. 

Cons 

• One of the biggest selling points of NFTs are the royalties that the creators get from secondary sales, currently FTX does not offer that utility to its users. 
• As a crypto exchange, it has limited cryptocurrencies to offer in comparison to other established centralized exchanges out there. 

Nifty Gateway 

Since its inception in 2018, Nifty Gateway has made major headlines in the NFT space for being behind some of the most historic NFT drops ever. It is also known for being the marketplace for hosting some of the most famous NFT creators like Beeple and Deadmau5. The platform is also considered ultra-exclusive where creators are able to join on an invite-only basis. 

Pros 

• The platform treats its users to heavily curated NFT drops every three weeks, often from celebrated artists and media personalities.  
• NFTs can be purchased using fiat, a feature rarely offered by any of the NFT marketplace out there. 
• The brand recognition of the marketplace is one of the greatest amongst its competitors due to the publicity of its celebrity users. 

Cons 

• Taking into consideration the recent turn of events, the security protocols of Nifty Gateway have come under scrutiny because of the recent hack which targeted numerous accounts resulting in theft of artworks worth thousands of dollars. In regards to the hack, Nifty Gateway clarified that the users whose accounts were hacked did not have active 2FA protection and recommended that all users use 2FA to prevent this from happening again. 
• The offerings of the marketplace is targeted mostly towards its US userbase, as international users will have to rely on their Gemini accounts for any withdrawals. 

Foundation 

Foundation is one of the fastest growing NFT marketplaces out there and is the home of some of the world’s most famous NFTs such as NyanCat, PplPleasr and Pak x Trevor Jones. The platform markets itself as a “creative playground” for artists and has built a reputation for being an artist-run enterprise that facilitates auctions for rare and exclusive NFT artworks. 

Pros 

• The platform’s biggest strength is the highly curated NFT offerings that it brings to its users. Mainly focusing on digital artworks, Foundation continues to attract an exclusive userbase that is drawn to the marketplace for its consistent quality of featured creators. 
• Foundation has also managed to build an active and thriving community of users and creators that utilize other social media platforms to network and spread the word about the marketplace. 
• Foundations provides excellent customer support with its proactive customer support platform, frequently updated blog and an extensive FAQ webpage.  

Cons 

• Foundation operates as a premium service which entails a higher service charge being levied on the users of the platform on top of the gas fees. 

• The platform has been known to be incredibly picky with the creators that it features and this level of exclusivity borders on limiting the growth of the platform. 

So, there you go! A quick and comprehensive list of the advantages and disadvantages of using some of the major NFT platforms out there. It will be quite interesting to see how these platforms will evolve over the course of the next few months… 

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