An NFT Storm Brewing for OpenSea as FTX’s New Platform ‘a Month Away’
Major crypto derivatives exchange FTX is “well-positioned” to become “a very solid competitor” to the popular and controversy-stricken non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, according to Brett Harrison, president of FTX.US.
He told Bloomberg that the exchange has a “robust framework,” and is therefore “set up for an easy expansion” – specifically to include NFTs minted externally.
The exchange already allows their users to mint and list NFTs, but the next goal is to enable them to bring in projects they minted through other platforms with the company building their own NFT platform, per the report.
“Our exchange can handle more than just NFTs,” Harrison was quoted as saying.
He added that they are “definitely building” their own “OpenSea competitor,” stating that their NFT platform is about a month away from becoming available.
This past July, the FTX operator, FTX Trading Ltd., said it closed USD 900m Series B fundraise, with over 60 investors, valuing the company at USD 18bn, while just a year prior that number stood at USD 1bn. The company stated at the time that it would look to further expand the network of partnerships it has for its FTX NFT, FTX Pay, and FTX Liquidity program business lines.
In August it was announced that FTX was partnering up with entertainment company Dolphin Entertainment to launch an NFT marketplace for prominent sports and entertainment brands.
And then earlier in September, the exchange’s founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, tweeted that FTX’s US arm – which he said both US and non-US users can use – launched a minting platform. The NFTs are built cross-chain on Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH), he said, adding:
“Deposits/withdrawals opening up in the next couple weeks. You’ll also be able to deposit outside NFTs then!”
On Twitter, two days ago, Harrison further added that as they “build out our NFT marketplace on FTX, we’re thinking a lot about fees,” providing a thread on FTX NFT’s fee structure discussion, and inviting feedback.
Meanwhile, following accusation of insider trading, OpenSea confirmed last week that one of their employees had purchased items that they knew were set to display on the front page before they appeared there publicly – hence knowing that those items were likely jump in price. The employee had to leave the company.
The NFT unicorn added that they also implemented several policies that forbid its team members from trading collections that are featured or promoted by the company, among other restrictions.
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Learn more:
– Blockchain Users Shift Focus Towards Dapp Gaming
– NFT Insider Trading On OpenSea Highlights Benefits of Decentralization
– Eight-Year-Old Japanese Boy Starts Building ETH Fortune Selling NFTs
– When You Buy an NFT, You Don’t Completely Own It – Here’s Why
– FTX Sees ‘Explosive Growth’ With More than 1M Sign-Ups This Year
– NBA, MLB, E-sports, And Now Bündchen & Brady Join FTX’s Marketing Team
