Grab your popcorn as this marketplace war show is not over. Determined on retaliation for all of Blur’s bold attacks, OpenSea presents its wild card, OpenSea Pro. To recap, OpenSea acquired Gem last year in April 2022 and introduced Gem V2 as OpenSea Pro recently. Combining Gem’s aggregation and analytic tools power with OpenSea’s marketplace expertise, OpenSea believes is their kill shot at Blur. Is it, though? How will this war affect the NFT market?
Introducing OpenSea Pro
Given the backlash OpenSea got from the community and the full-on war Blur brought to it, they took their sweet time to make the next move. Opensea is using its brand value and Gem’s powerful tools to compete against BLUR. On April 4, OpenSea Pro was announced in a thread detailing everything about the new platform.
Allow us to reintroduce ourselves 📣
Starting today, Gem V2, the best-in-class NFT aggregator, is now OpenSea Pro!
💎➡️⛵️
OpenSea Pro will still be run by the same Gem team you know & love, but with unified brands we are able to offer users MUCH more
Let's dive in 👇🏽🧵 pic.twitter.com/pyt6QnjW7b
— OpenSea Pro (@openseapro) April 4, 2023
OpenSea Pro comes to the community at the right time. It makes you wonder if they have been planning this all along. Blur Season 1 was low-key with the launch of the marketplace in October. Season 2 was announced after the token airdrop for season 1 on February 14, and the game changed. There were points to be earned, and the blocking OpenSea drama happened. Season 2 rewards were supposed to drop on April 1, but instead, the farming season was extended until May.
The community reaction was not all that great, because collectors are bored,flippers are frustrated, and airdrop farmers are tired. The game is taking way too long.
We’re working on something new.
We originally wanted to launch April 1, but it’s going to take longer to build it right.
As consolation, bidding and listing points for Season 2 will remain doubled until May 1.
🚨STAY TUNED🚨 pic.twitter.com/PjDXLb5mV4
— Blur (@blur_io) March 28, 2023
If you scroll a little in the replies to their announcement you see Machibigbrother, NFT whale and number one trader on Blur’s leaderboard, reacting with “Fuck”. Hardly interpreted as a sigh of relief.
Then comes OpenSea Pro the savior sweeping traders off their feet with a new paradigm, and some war entertainment.
OpenSea Pro Vs Blur
In a nutshell, Opensea has taken exactly what traders love about Blur, added Gem’s aggregation powers, tweaked the UX/UI, put some analytics, and branded it OpenSea Pro. Here are the main advantages it has over Blur:
- Simple UI
- Live Mints
- Better mobile experience
- Live mints
- 0% marketplace fees (for a promotional period)
- Easy Bulk purchases, offers, and listings
- Faster metadata/collection updates
- Advanced analytic tools
- Optimized gas fees
- Marketplace aggregation (170+ marketplaces in 1)
- Mobile Optimization
- Community Rewards as NFTs
1- Performance: OpenSea Vs Blur
According to analytics from NFTGo, in the past 3 months, Blur (1.98 M) surpassed OpenSea (948.66 K) in trading volume by approximately 1 million. However, OpenSea still has a higher number of sales, traders, buyers, and sellers.
In the past 24 hours, after OpenSea pro announced their Free-to-claim Gemesis NFT, it has been trending. At first, you think this NFT name comes from genesis, being the first NFT in the series of OpenSea Pro rewards.
Then you realize, there’s a double meaning hiding in plain sight. OpenSea Pro are not lowkey to reveal braggingly that Gemesis naming is inspired by their favorite Nemesis Blur. Someone has been bitter for a while and is really seeking blood.
Nemesis https://t.co/D3I8IhKP8W
— OpenSea Pro (@openseapro) April 6, 2023
2-UX and Built-in Features
The first thing you notice about OpenSea Pro’s new UX is that it looks so much like Blur, but tweaked. Both have the option to customize background color, pro mode or collector, and it’s almost exactly the same. Rip off much?
OpenSea Pro comes with additional features such as:
- Sweep Section where you can see sweeper’s activity and which collection is being swept.
- Live Minting where you can watch and mint directly from the OpenSea Pro platform.
- Instant Sell feature will sell your NFT directly to any marketplace that offers the best price.
3-$BLUR tokens Vs Free NFTs
While Opensea Pro literally took the best of Blur and added a few extra features along with 0% marketplace fees, Blur has one key advantage for “pro” traders: Token rewards.
OpenSea seems to be taking a different route with community rewards. Instead of a token, OpenSea Pro will reward their platform traders with NFTs. They started this off with Gemesis NFT that was up for grabs to anyone who used Gem before March 31, 2023 – to be minted directly from OpenSea. No one knows what this collection is about just yet.
WaleSwoosh pointed out in a thread that the main problem with OpenSea Pro giving out Free NFTs is it might take liquidity out of the market because traders only make money if someone buys the NFT.
Wen token airdrop?
Opensea Pro: Let’s look at the facts 🧵👇
(1/17) pic.twitter.com/3pjbiVui06
— wale.swoosh 🐳 (@waleswoosh) April 5, 2023
However, if you notice on OpenSea’s description for Gemsis Category, it’s Art. Makes you think if OpenSea has one major trick up its sleeve. Also, on OpenSea Pro platform they say that they are monitoring their users and keeping score (another nod at Blur). This only makes you anticipate that something good is cooking. So where can it go from here? Here are some possibilities where OpenSea Pro could:
- reward users with legacy NFTs like CryptoPunks
- reward users with fractional NFTs such as a 1/10000th of a BAYC
- create their own NFT ecosystem
- make a loyalty program where they partner with top artists or even brands for a limited edition drop. If they’re watching score then more points = rare airdrops/WL
Who Will Prevail?
Indeed it was a smart move for OpenSea to go pro. Especially the fact that they quite literally took the brand catchphrase of Blur being “ the platform for PRO traders”.
To be clear Blur only leads the marketplace battle regarding volume and liquidity. If we have a look at trades, OpenSea is number 1. Even if OpenSea disappointed their community with the royalties drama, Blur is under so much scrutiny and suspicions of wash trading. In the eyes of the community, it doesn’t really look good for Blur in the long run, but traders only care about the cash and Blur is delivering on money.
It’s all about the money and OpenSea doesn’t have the chance at competing without a token. The value or appeal of collecting NFTs is gone and they’re being treated as financial assets with a jpeg. It’s no longer about the art or the creator or any of that charm. The smartest outcome could be OpenSea branding as the collector’s platform, especially if they reward their users with well-known NFTs, and Blur as the trader’s platform.
But can they coexist like that? Till when will this war go? What does this imply for the future of NFTs? Actually, what the hell is an NFT holder considered at this time? A collector or financial trader or is it both?