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OpenSea becomes the first Non-Fungible Token (NFT) trading platform to record over $1bn of monthly trade volumes. OpenSea has experienced a surge in NFT trade during August 2021, with trade volumes growing 649.28% to reach a value of $1.87bn, according to Dapp Radar, a data company that tracks on decentralized applications including real-time NFT transactions.

This makes OpenSea the first NFT marketplace to achieve trading volumes over $1bn, making it the leader of one of the fastest growing digital markets.

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OpenSea on its way to dominate NFT market

OpenSea generates income by charging users 2.5% of trade value, like how other peer-to-peer trading platforms like eBay operate. The company was given a $1.5bn valuation after receiving $100m in Series B funding led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The company intends to use funding to become the first cross-blockchain NFT marketplace and expand its services into new geographies, widening the gap between itself and rival NFT marketplaces.

NFT market has experienced prolific growth in 2021

NFTs are unique tokenized representations of digital files that are exchanged on public blockchains. Digital files include images, videos, music and historically significant pieces of digital heritage.

For example, the original source code for the world wide web, written by its inventor Tim Berners-Lee, was converted into an NFT and sold for $5.4m at auction during July 2021

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The ownership of these digital tokens has gained popularity among Investors, collectors, and sports fans, resulting in a surge in NFT trade during H1 2021.

According to Dapp Radar, NFTs generated approximately $2.5bn in sales during 2Q 2021, up from $13.1m generated by the market during the same period in 2020.

Commercial interest could help the NFT market go mainstream

As a relatively new and generally confusing market, for most consumers there is still a large amount of scepticism surrounding NFTs. However, the participation of large commercial businesses in the NFT market could help weaken concerns.

In April 2021, the NBA launched NFTs in the form of video highlights which fans can buy, collect and trade, like digital playing cards. According to Dapper Labs the company responsible for the creation of NBA TopShot, the company has sold over $700m of NTFs.

Global payment and financial services company, Visa, demonstrated its support for NFTs by purchasing its own token of ownership for a ‘CryptoPunk’, one of the most popular and successful NFT projects. Visa bought one of 10,000 CryptoPunk collectables for approximately $150,000, believing NFTs will play a crucial role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce.