OpenSea is an NFT marketplace that has been ruling the NFT space for a while now. They were launched in 2017 with a beta version of the platform and as a result, became the very first protocol to provide an open marketplace for any type of non-fungible token on the Ethereum network.
Since then OpenSea has grown tremendously and has established its position globally, as the largest non fungible token marketplace in the entire world. Not only do they have more than 80 million NFTs on the marketplace, but they also have upward of 2 million NFT collections that fall under multiple categories.
Recently OpenSea announced to its users that they will be rolling out their very new and exciting update which is OpenSea Pro. Not only has this new update created a new vigour in the users, it is also making waves in the market as it is touted to be a direct answer to Blur, the biggest competitor of Open Sea. In this article, we will take you through what is OpenSea Pro, its comparison with Blur and how you can claim your free OpenSea NFT through it.
You can also read: How to prepare for OpenSea Airdrop Guide 2023
What is OpenSea Pro
OpenSea Pro is a new product of OpenSea itself and is marketed as a very strong and fast NFT Marketplace, the platform announced the launch of OpenSea Pro by saying this:
“In early 2022, we were excited to see the NFT ecosystem evolve, as an emerging group of power NFT collectors drove innovation and change. To support this growing community, we acquired Gem, the leading NFT aggregator, in April. As power users continued to push the frontiers of what’s possible with NFTs, we recognized the opportunity for both Gem and OpenSea to offer more. Over the past several months, the Gem team has been working tirelessly to build and refine the platform to its new form: Gem v2. And today, we’re officially joining forces to unveil OpenSea Pro (previously Gem v2) – the fastest and most powerful NFT marketplace aggregator available.”
The role that OpenSea Pro is going to play is that it is bringing the powers of optionality, selection, and control and establishing them at a whole new level. Since it is engineered over the past designs created by Gem, OpenSea Pro will be able to employ the expertise from that end as well and create bring in a more holistic approach. The features offered are promised to be better and more improved, which with their impeccable reliability and sheer volume will be able to give users the power to find the best offers as well as insights across a hundred and seventy marketplaces. Additionally OpenSea Pro also plans on keeping at disposal of the users a wide range of sophisticated tools that will be able to aid in the various automation requirements.
Learn more about the Gem acquisition in the official blog: OpenSea Acquires Gem to Invest in ‘Pro’ Experience
Top Features of OpenSea Pro
OpenSea Pro does have a lot of advantages over the other platforms through its extensive list of features. Some of these features include
- Live Cross-Marketplace Data with Faster metadata/collection updates
- Advanced Orders
- Powerful Inventory Management
- Instant Sales
- Most Optimized Gas Fees and a 0% listing fee
- Mobile Compatibility
- Watchlist
- Live Mints Overview
- Batch Transfer
- Bulk purchases, offers, and listings
However, keep in mind that the 0% listing fee is not a permanent feature. According to the published blog announcement, you will be able to list on OpenSea with the 0% listing fees through OpenSea Pro without any additional fees, but only for a limited promotional period. After that, the fees on OpenSea will eventually return to their standard 2.5%.
Free OpenSea NFT
Both OpenSea and Gem have always believed in rewarding the community members for their interaction with the platform and the support they offer. As a result, even with the launch of OpenSea Pro, they have decided to award users with something.
As a part of the celebration of this new update, the Gem team doesn’t just extend its gratitude to the users but is also planning on giving an incentive to the members of their community who have been loyal users from the very start. In order to monumentalize their journey, they will be dropping the ‘Gemesis’ NFT as a “special ‘thank you’ for Gem’s early adopters.”
The reward process started on 4th April 2023 and will go on till the 4th of May 2023, which is a month long time span. The users who have actually purchased a non fungible token on the Gem platform before the 31st of March, 2023, are the ones who will be considered qualified for the reward. All the eligible users can claim a Gemesis NFT, which will be completely free for them, till the end of the rewarding programme (May 4, 2023). If you fulfil the qualification criteria, we highly suggest you waste no time in claiming your NFT for absolutely free NOW!
OpenSea Pro and Blur: Comparision
Opensea and Blur have always been the biggest names in the space of NFT marketplaces. Even though OpenSea is a pioneer in a sense and is considered the largest marketplace, Blur has been quickly growing in its presence. Not only did it shoot up in popularity, but it also launched its own token which led to massive growth for the platform.
You can learn more: What is BLUR? Blur Price Prediction 2023, 2024, 2025 to 2030
However, OpenSea has decided to launch the OpenSea Pro at an impeccable time. Recently, Blur announced that they extended the farming period for the season 2 rewards programme and justified this move by stating that they are in fact “working on something new”. This announcement was met with mostly negative reactions. The major reasons for the adverse response can be attributed to the fact that because of the extension, the collectors are getting bored, the flippers are facing a lot of frustration and even airdrop farmers are getting tired.
In this scenario, OpenSea couldn’t have announced their upgrade at a better time since the OpenSea Pro is essentially their “trader solution”, an ultimate solution for everyone from whales to daily traders and from degens to beginner users.
Blur vs Opensea: Consequences of the competition
There is a lot of frustration that is setting in in the NFT market, especially because of the change in perception of NFTs. The huge trends that were once soaring last year touted NFTs as the next cool things, however now the “value” or “appeal” of collecting NFTs is slowly dissipating. There is a new wave where NFTs are being assumed as any other monetary asset class like stocks or crypto coins or jpeg files.
To quote Hunter Solaire, who is a famous NFT Strategist and Writer, “The NFT space thinks it’s boring and they are over it. We’ve seen some of this boredom manifest itself in the market. Potential Hot Take: The lack of excitement in NFTs is exactly why Nakamigos is doing well.”
However, the situation is not as bleak as it may appear or sound. This sort of frustration and fatigue in the industry is definitely leading to a very amplified and high level of competition between leading NFT marketplaces. When two platforms compete it only ends up in a domino effect that benefits the users of both the marketplaces eventually.
Some of the several advantages users are bound to get as a result of this competition between OpenSea and Blue are:
Better and improved products
This is always a given when it comes to the user benefits of increased competition. As we can see with the OpenSea Pro, they have utilised exactly what traders enjoy and appreciate the most about Blur. They have taken Blur’s Simple plus uncomplicated User Interface, Easy bulk trading options and advanced NFT analytics, and enhanced these features. Not only that, OpenSea has also added some extra elements like Live Mints and Instant Selling across all marketplaces.
Greater and more viable Incentives
Incentives play a very important role in the success of every project. Many protocols, including Blur, have launched their tokens, and incentivised users through the token airdrops. OpenSea, on the other hand, has witnessed the game of token farming play out in a realistic landscape and most probably we wouldn’t really be seeing the launch of an open sea token. A major reason is that the NFT marketplace is based in the United States of America and a token issuance will only end up resulting in several problems and complications
However, OpenSea does realise the significance of a rewarding system That’s why they are planning on rewarding users not with crypto coins but instead with different free non fungible tokens. They have said that “And we’re not forgetting about community rewards. Keep your spyglasses ready! We’re charting a different course by featuring NFTs as rewards (this will be separate from our commemorative Gemesis NFT).”
Also read about Blur Season 2 Airdrop Guide: How to get the next Blur Airdrop?
To conclude
To summarise the entire situation we have at hand, I can say that the NFT market is headed in the right direction right now. We are bound to witness some major improvements that will lead to a significant growth in the industry. With increased inflow, adoption and benefits that the upgrades of the NFT space will offer, we can definitely speculate an upward trend on the horizon. Through the course of the next few months or maybe even a few years, it is for sure that all platforms including Opensea and Blur will be competing in the race of attracting your trading activity. At this pace, they will be pushed to innovate at a much faster rate, which is only going to benefit you as the user.
