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7 best NFT marketplaces

See where these NFT marketplaces excel — and where they fall short.

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By

Bethany Hickey

Updated

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With so many NFT marketplaces on offer, users have to weigh the pros and cons to find the one that fits their needs best. Marketplaces often specialize in a specific NFT niche, while some are mixed marketplaces, but many have a category or attribute where they shine. We do the heavy lifting by comparing each NFT marketplaces’ attributes, from fees to ease.

8 best NFT marketplaces

Here are our top picks for NFT marketplaces in 2022:

Best overall: OpenSea
Best for active traders: Crypto.com
Best for fine art: Foundation
Best for sport collectibles: NBA Top Shot
Best for music collectibles: Nifty Gateway
Best for domains: Unstoppable Domains
Best for memes: Rarible

Best overall: OpenSea

OpenSea

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OpenSea is built on the Ethereum blockchain and was founded in 2017. It's the first and largest NFT marketplace, and recently started accepting credit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay for payment. It features NFT categories like art, music, sports, trading cards and more. There's a 2.5% marketplace fee per trade, royalties can be set up to 10% and OpenSea also supports over 150 cryptocurrencies and more than 10 crypto wallets. However, fake NFTs are rampant on the platform. OpenSea reported that approximately 80% of the NFTs listed are fake, so while you'll have a large variety of listings to choose from, you must practice due diligence before buying.

Best for active traders: Crypto.com

Crypto.com NFT

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Well-known for its exchange, Crypto.com launched an NFT marketplace in 2021. It's a mixed marketplace featuring multiple NFT categories and offers multiple payment options, including credit cards and over 20 cryptocurrencies. Buying NFTs on the platform features no gas fees if you pay with the Crypto.com App. There's a 15% primary listing fee, but no hefty, fluctuating gas fees to worry about when minting either. It also features multi-chain support: ETH, Polygon and CMO. You must apply to become a creator, though. Users can create up to 50 collectibles per week with 10 editions for each collectible.

Best for fine art: Foundation

Foundation

Foundation is built on the Ethereum blockchain and launched in February 2021. It's known as an exclusive art NFT marketplace. Foundation specializes in digital art, from beautiful to shocking, or from nature scenes to politics. All NFTs are listed for ETH on the platform, with typical pricing from around 0.25 ETH to 3 ETH — approximately $700 to $8,500 — at the time of writing.

To become a creator, you must be invited by an existing user, which not only helps with market oversaturation but also curates the marketplace's feed to align with the platform's style. However, anyone can create an account to make purchases.

Users pay gas fees for transactions such as minting, buying, listing or placing a bid on an auction. Supported wallets include MetaMask and WalletConnect.

Best for sport collectibles: NBA Top Shot

NBA Top shot

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NBA Top Shot, as the name suggests, sells officially-licensed NBA NFT collectibles. It's built on the Flow blockchain, and is known for its exclusive highlight clips of 'epic' basketball video snippets. NBA Top Shot remains one of the best sport NFT marketplaces today. Its market cap is valued at over one billion dollars, according to Statista.

The collectibles are similar to trading cards — think baseball cards. Each sport highlight video comes with its own serial number and limited copies, helping the market determine its value and rarity. Users can also buy packs of these collectibles directly from the platform, or buy from peers on the secondary market.

Payment methods include Visa and Mastercard, or cryptocurrency. Either way you pay, you need an NBA Top Shot account and a crypto wallet to store the assets. The platform supports five currencies: BCH, BTC, DAI, ETH and USDC.

Best for music collectibles: Nifty Gateway

Nifty Gateway

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Nifty Gateway launched in 2018 and was acquired by Gemini, one of the largest crypto exchanges. It's known for launching NFT collections by famous musicians, including The Weeknd, Deadmau5, Eminem, Gramatik and Grimes, just to name a few.

If you're on the hunt for music NFT collections minted by well-known musicians, this is the place to look. Musicians often participate in NFT drops, an event where their NFT content is up for sale for a limited time. Users can subscribe to the 'ultra-exclusive' drop list to keep up with news on upcoming drops.

Additionally, Nifty Gateway can be a great place for collectors and creators in general. The platform covers gas fees when minting, buying and withdrawing an NFT. However, users need to pay gas fees when depositing NFTs into the market, purchasing an NFT with prepaid ETH or withdrawing prepaid ETH. Users can also buy NFTs with credit and debit cards, a major plus.

Best for domains: Unstoppable Domains

Unstoppable Domains

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Unstoppable Domains specializes in selling NFT domains. NFT domains are censorship-resistant and permanent. Unlike buying a traditional domain, users don't have to shell out renewal fees — once the NFT domain name is bought, it's theirs forever. An NFT domain name can be used to receive cryptocurrencies from across blockchain networks, so they have real utility.

Users have full custody over their purchased domain names, and can sell it or transfer it any time without permission from a third-party. The domain names can be sold as collectibles on secondary marketplaces, and all domains are ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum Mainnet and Polygon network. Domains purchased from Unstoppable Domains are supported by multiple browsers, including Chrome and Firefox.

Unstoppable Domains supports BTC, BCH, ETH, DAI, LTC and USDC for payment. Users can also make purchases with PayPal, credit card or the Crypto.com app. The platform requires users to have a MetaMask wallet and extension.

Best for memes: Rarible

Rarible

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Rarible is a large, mixed marketplace, but it is also well-known for its meme content. The platform is less focused on art and sophistication, and is more geared toward meme- and Internet-inspired content.

If you're interested in NFTs inspired by pop, meme and defi culture, this is the place to check out. As of February 2022, over 400,000 NFTs have been created and it has 1.6 million users, as reported by Business Insider.

Rarible is built on Ethereum, and supports multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Flow and Tezos. Users on the platform are greeted by trending collections, hot bids, live auctions and top sellers.

It's easy to sort results by blockchain, price, category and more. Rarible features many NFT niches including domains, sports, NSFW, gaming, art and metaverse. Users can also participate in gasless minting on the platform.

Rarible has a connection fee, 2.5% listing fee and gas fees for interacting with the blockchain. For payment, Rarible accepts Visa and Mastercard but only for fixed-price items, as auctions are crypto-exclusive. Since Rarible is a multichain marketplace, to buy an NFT with crypto, you need the specific native currency for the blockchain that the NFT is on.

How we chose the best NFT marketplaces

We reviewed multiple NFT marketplaces and honed in on where they excel, where they could use improvement and what they’re best known for to list the top eight best NFT marketplaces. Our methodology includes:

  • User ease
  • Creator and buyer fees
  • Reputation and security
  • Variety of payment methods
  • NFT categories available
  • Year launched
  • Royalty percentage for creators
  • Supported blockchains

How to protect yourself when trading NFTs

With any NFT marketplace, the biggest risk you have as a collector is running into fake NFTs. Since crypto and NFTs are decentralized markets, there’s little to no regulation, so you’re largely on your own when it comes to verifying NFT authenticity.

Keep these tips in mind while using an NFT marketplace:

  • Never give out your wallet’s private keys to anyone.
  • Look through an NFT’s transaction and ownership history to help you determine its authenticity.
  • Established marketplaces may have more tried-and-true security measures than a brand new marketplace.
  • Keep your NFT marketplace account information private.

Above all, keep your wits about you and remember that NFTs are volatile. There’s no guarantee that you’ll make money buying or selling NFTs, since an NFT’s value is largely dependent on consumer interest, ownership history and accessibility — values can change by the second.

  1. Statista, ‘Sales volume of NFT collectible card game NBA Top Shot…’, July 2020 to December 2021
  2. Business Insider, ‘Rarible review’, Feb 25 2022

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