coindesk.com
Leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea said Tuesday it’s rolling out OpenSea Pro, a marketplace with advanced features targeting the growing market of professional NFT traders that has helped rival NFT marketplace Blur surge since its launch.
The new product is a rebrand of Gem v2, which is the newest version of Gem’s NFT aggregation platform. OpenSea acquired Gem in April 2022, with plans to bring its professional trading tools to OpenSea users.
OpenSea Pro will operate with 0% fees and pull listings across 170 marketplaces to provide the best deals for traders. It will support advanced “floor sweeping” for traders, instant sales, inventory management, the ability to optimize gas fees for efficient trades, a watchlist feature and more. It will also be available on mobile devices.
Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea, told CoinDesk that Gem has helped OpenSea build OpenSea Pro to become the most efficient NFT trading tool on the market.
“[Gem v1] is amazing, you know, it’s an incredible aggregator tool, but this is really a dramatic step up from it,” said Finzer. “It's incredibly fast, incredibly real time. It’s really the fastest user experience for purchasing NFTs.”
OpenSea vs. Blur
The competition for market share of NFT trading volume between OpenSea and zero-fee platform Blur’s rise has been rapid since the marketplace’s launch in October – leading OpenSea to drop its required creator fees to 0% in order to court Blur traders.
OpenSea said in its launch of OpenSea Pro it's bringing its creator fees back to the main platform at 2.5%.
“We’ll certainly, with regards to fees, continue investing the revenue back into making the space stronger,” said Finzer.
While OpenSea’s move to release OpenSea Pro comes at a time where the marketplace is in fierce competition for top spot with Blur, Finzer specified that OpenSea will still focus on providing tools and improvements for retail traders and creators, including focusing on new partnerships, primary drops and smart contract standards.
“We're investing in really exciting features that make it easier for people to explore and purchase their first NFT and then really push the use cases forward for NFTs,” said Finzer. “Folks can come to OpenSea and graduate to a professional experience.”
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