UNDRGRND - SELECTING AN NFT MARKETPLACE

SELECTING AN NFT MARKETPLACE

Wanda Oliver — March 15, 2022

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MARCH 15TH, 2022

The world of NFTs is exploding and every day there are new options for creators when it comes to platforms for minting, listing, and showcasing their work. The universe is rapidly expanding in all directions at once.  In such an environment, how do you choose a platform?  What requirements should you consider?  We are urged to DYOR, but how do you complete the task of doing your own research?  How do you know that you’ve made a good choice?  

The first thing I want to urge you to do is to separate the actions I mentioned above - Mint, List, Showcase.  It is possible for a platform to be an excellent choice for some actions and a very poor choice for others.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I intend to address each action in turn.  Today, we focus on minting.  We’ll divide our discussion into four parts, beginning with the most important requirements of a minting platform.

Architectural Essentials

At mint, we establish our work on-chain.  How this is done will have an impact on the work throughout its lifetime.  I do not mint on any platform that does not satisfy these three key points.  These are the elements of the mint that protect the provenance and longevity of your work.

1. The mint function establishes the creator as the original owner of the piece.  This may seem like a given, but some marketplaces mint from their own wallet on behalf of the creator.  In these cases, the creator is either absent entirely from the originating provenance of the work, or, at best, recorded as an element of metadata.

2. Metadata, the information that gives context to your work such as the title and description, and contains the link between the blockchain and the media file that is your artwork, is permanently stored.  It could be stored on-chain - best, but less common.  Otherwise, it must be permanently stored in IPFS, Arweave, or similar safe, decentralized storage.  It is not uncommon for metadata to be stored on the web server of the marketplace, or in their Google Cloud account.  Any corporate-controlled storage places your work at risk of simply disappearing at the whim of the business concerned.

3. The media file that is your actual artwork is permanently stored.  Due to the size of media files, it is rare for the art to be stored on-chain.  Like metadata, it should be permanently stored in IPFS, Arweave, or similar safe, decentralized storage.

Unfortunately, these most essential elements are the hardest to confirm. You will typically need to use a block chain explorer to examine the details of a mint on the platform to determine whether it conforms to these conditions. I have written an article that goes into this topic of true provenance in more detail, discusses the tools available for doing your own research, and illustrates what to look for. You can read it here. The Best in Class platforms, in terms of this requirement, provide links directly from the artwork page to the on-chain minting transaction, the metadata, and the art itself. The example below is from foundation.app.

Monetary Essentials

The next questions to consider have to do with costs, return on investment, and royalties.

1. What are the platform commissions and fees?  Along with chain-related gas fees, these vary widely, though the least expensive platform is not always the platform that will yield the best return on your investment.  Costs must be considered in balance with the prices typically paid for art on the platform, the services provided by the platform, and the advantages you might enjoy as a creator on the platform.

2. How much control do you have in setting up royalties for secondary sales?  Do you choose the amount or is it fixed?

3. Will royalties for work minted on the platform be honored across the entire ecosystem of the given blockchain?

4. If you are collaborating on an artwork, can royalties be split?  If they cannot, how will you ensure that you are fairly compensated on secondary sales?

To answer these questions you will need to comb the available documentation on the platform, jump into the platform’s Discord channel and ask questions of the team, and do some back of the envelope math for yourself.  You will also have to ask yourself what kinds of trade-offs are acceptable to you given your individual goals.

What Serves Your Particular Needs

We move now from essentials applicable to all creators across all chains and marketplaces to elements that will vary in importance to you based on your own projects and preferences.  

1. Are you prepared for the great trade-off - the high and difficult-to-manage gas fees of the Ethereum world measured against the established lead it enjoys in NFT art?  And, are you comfortable with the risk associated with the younger marketplaces now operating on other, greener, and less expensive chains?  This will be a very personal choice that only you can make for yourself.

2. Does the platform support discoverability for your work via powerful search tools, effective tagging and categorization, and useful filters?  Are there on-platform social elements that allow you to bookmark artworks and artists that you admire and want to revisit often? Think hard about how collectors will find and follow your work on the platform.

3. Does the platform offer you the ability to organize your work into collections corresponding to projects or series or related bodies of work?

4. Does the platform offer you the option of proffering your work in editions, or is every mint a one of one by default?

5. Are collaborations supported - i.e. can the work be minted as the work of multiple creators?

6. Do you have the option of providing unlockable content for collectors?

7. Does the platform allow you to build a rich profile that tells your story well, give you the option to include your portfolio and social media links, and otherwise provide an effective introduction to you and your work?  MintGoldDust.com’s Memoirs offer Best in Class functionality on this point.

8. Does the platform provide sufficient information regarding activity on the platform for you to gain insight into timing decisions, pricing decisions, and other aspects of managing your business?  Async.art does an excellent job on this front.  If you want to explore this question further, I encourage you to spend time assessing their Activity tab. It’s another Best in Class.

9. When you visit the homepage of the marketplace, do you feel at home?  Do you see your work appealing to the collectors that are likely to be drawn to the site?  Is the art on the site presented well?  Do you find yourself wanting to spend time exploring the site?  Do you lose track of time as you explore?

10. Does the descriptive information included on the artwork page provide a complete and meaningful set of information for the prospective collector?  If not, what should you be prepared to include in the title and description of the piece?  How many characters are you allowed to do that?

11. How do the marketplace features enhance the utility and experience of your work?

12. If you will be subject to curatorial decisions by the site, are the decisions prompt?  Are they paired with useful feedback?

13. Are your favorite browsers and wallets well supported by the platform?  Is it possible to use ordinary payment systems such as credit cards, payPay, and ApplePay on the site?  How crypto-savvy must your collectors be to acquire your work?

Community

Perhaps this should be right up there at the top with the essentials - though not directly a platform feature, community is a critical part of your success in the NFT world at large, and of your sense of well-being on a platform. For that reason, I want to come full circle and close with questions of community.

1. Where and how do the creators, the collectors, and the platform team interact with one another?  On Discord, in Telegram, in Clubhouse, on TwitterSpaces?  Are you comfortable with these approaches?

2. How active, responsive, and supportive is the community?

3. Do you feel welcomed into the family?

4. Do you feel a rapport with the folks you find there?

5. If you have problems or questions, do you get prompt and helpful responses from the team and your fellow community members?

I asked if you were welcomed into the family. I urge you to think in exactly those terms, choosing a platform is analogous in so many ways to choosing a family. There are the elements that provide a stable and secure foundation, there are the elements that give you scope for being your full, true self, and there are the elements that bring joy to your heart. Choose well.

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