“NFTs are down overall, but if you look at the NFT market separately, a lot of the fluff has been cleaned out,” Wu said. “To my eyes, there is also beginning to be more emphasis on utility and fan engagement in addition to the collectible world.”
Some of the biggest players in the NFT space have joined forces to increase NFT activity. OpenSea, which exclusively told TechCrunch that it has launched natively on the layer-1 blockchain, Avalanche, has done so.
OpenSea VP Shiva Rajaraman told TechCrunch that web3’s future is multichain, as he said in an email. The best selection and the greatest number of connections among chains are what web3 has always offered, he said.
OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, will function on the blockchain alongside existing platforms like NFTrade and other Avalanche-focused NFT marketplaces, including Joepegs and Kalao. With Avalanche, users of OpenSea will be able to settle NFT transactions in less than a second with minimal transaction fees, the firm said.
Ava Labs president John Wu told TechCrunch that “part of our community” wanted OpenSea, and “we want to listen to them.” He said that the NFT community is “budding and vibrant” and that they want OpenSea as a choice.
OpenSea will showcase all Avalanche-based NFT collections, and more will be added over time.
Wu said Avalanche is working with a few Web 2.0 enterprises, including business and consumer brands and sports teams, in addition to a few Web 2.0 enterprises. These enterprises wanted OpenSea to be a choice on Avalanche, Wu said.
“Brands want a chain that is scalable, since [Web 2.0] is so much bigger than [Web 3]. They want a chain that can handle massive amounts of activity from its users,” Wu said. “These brands are far more comfortable working with OpenSea.”
In January, the subsector was exploding in popularity, and OpenSea exchanged about 80 million NFTs for a total of $20 billion. According to CryptoSlam data, Avalanche is the seventh-largest blockchain by NFT sales volume with $404.6 million in sales.
In contrast to the NFT market, which has slowed down in recent months, Avalanche’s NFT sales volume rose 38.52% in the past 30 days to $2.1 million.
“NFTs have dropped in value, and it’s unfortunate,” Wu said. “However, when you look at NFTs as a whole, much of the fluff has disappeared. In addition to utility and fan engagement, a new category of non-collectible items is starting to pick up.”
