How Opensea Works

Collections

On opensea, you will see many projects and collection releases. Although there are also many separate items, the most popular NFT’s are usually collections with a large artist or community behind them. You can find the main and most popular collections on the main page and in the filters to only see official items from the collection itself.

Above all, check that the collection has the blue verified tick to avoid buying a fake copy that has no value. This is why it is very important to look at verified profiles. Since the platform itself goes through a system to verify that they are real artists who are behind the project or NFT.

How to buy a NFT

Now just click on the NFT you want to buy and it will open the file of that NFT. Let’s see everything you can find in the card and you should pay attention.

First of all, at the top is the name or by whom the NFT was created. To make sure it is an official NFT, you can see if it is verified or the profile of the person who created it. Below the person who created it, which is very important to check that it is verified and is the official person of the project, you will see in owner the person who owns that NFT, or if there is more than one owner, the amount of people who have that NFT.

Here, you will also see how many people have viewed the NFT, the favorites and the total number of that NFT there are.

Further down, we find the price and the time left to sell that NFT, if it is in auction mode, where you can bid and if you are the highest bidder when it ends, you will get the NFT. Also, you can pay directly the price it indicates, so you do not have to wait for the auction to end and someone else comes with a higher amount and take the NFT.

You will see two buttons to buy now to buy it, and make an offer to offer a lower amount than the asking price, and see if the owner of the NFT is interested in your offer.

Further down we find the Price history, which is very important to see the evolution of the price it has had. You can filter by the last days or all the time and see its evolution.

On the left side, you can find more information about the NFT, such as properties and rarity of what it has, more about the project, and details. If we go further down, in trading history, you can find all the transaction information that has been done with that NFT in opensea. This is very important and gives us a lot of information, where we can see when it was created or mined, how many times it has been bought and sold and at what price, the offers that other people have made and all the information related to that NFT. An important aspect to check before buying any NFT.

Below you will see more NFT’s from the same collection. If you are thinking of buying a collection, I recommend you first go to the collection itself, by clicking on the name with the blue tick at the top, and see things like the prices of other NFT’s, floor Price, which is the lowest price you can buy an NFT and if others in the collection are being sold and bought to see if there is interest.

Finally, if you have seen all this information and you are interested, click on buy now or make an offer if you want to make an offer, indicate the amount and confirm in your wallet. In this simple way, you will have your NFT.

Commissions

Currently, opensea allows you to use the ethereum network, polygon and klaytn. If you look in the Marketplace, you will see many times the ethereum symbol with a purple color, this means that this NFT is in the polygon network and to buy it you must use that network.

This is because the ethereum network currently has very high commissions, and you can pay +50$ for just buying the NFT. Therefore, opensea implemented another network as polygon, so that its users can buy and sell their NFT’s on polygon with commissions of less than 1$. Although to be able to use this network, first the person who is selling the NFT, had to create it in the polygon network.

If it has the black ethereum token, you will not be able to buy the NFT using the polygon network, as the NFT was created on the polygon network.

If you click on the wallet, and on the ethereum symbol and the 3 dots, you will see options like bridge to polygon, to send your ethereum to polygon and have ethereum on that network to buy the NFT’s with the purple ethereum symbol. On their page if you are new, and don’t know how it works, you can find more information about the different networks in the same way you can look for tutorials on our beginners web page.

Create your NFT in opensea

To create your NFT, simply click on create. Here, you will upload the image, video or file type you want to use as NFT.

With this, indicate a number and more information if you want like an external link, a description and the properties that this NFT has. Finally, another information you must indicate is what network you want your NFT to be in, etheruem or polygon and click on create. Fortunately, there is no commission or gas fee to pay for creating your NFT at this time.

This way, you will see your NFT created, and you can click on sell to put it up for sale, specifying the price you want. To sell it, you will have to initialize your wallet and this has a high gas fee if you use the ethereum network, although you will only have to do it the first time, which is around $80. On the other hand, if you use the polygon network, the cost is 0$ to put your NFT for sale, so you will see more and more NFT’s being sold in polygon and not in ethereum.

Other Aspects

After seeing how opensea works and everything you should know about how it works, there are also important aspects you should look at if you want to invest your money in the best way and not lose it.

What you should always look at is the profile of the creator of the NFT that is verified and is really the one who has created the project. In addition to their social networks to see the support that the project has and the team or the person behind it. Another important aspect is the last prices that the NFT has had and the price in general of the collection, so as not to buy above the real price it has.

Also, there are NFT’s that have a use, this is another aspect that is important to know before buying it because it can give it even more value. Some of the uses that have the NFT’s are for play to earn games, for exclusive communities, or to be able to buy other NFT’s you must have some of the collection.

I hope this has helped you to know the most relevant aspects of opensea and how it works. Remember that, if you don’t have an account with binance, you can create one just below to buy your NFT’s.