Interoperability has been a fundamental issue in the blockchain ecosystem since its inception. This includes the NFT market, where buyers and sellers are limited by the difficulty of moving assets across chains. AxelarSea, powered by Axelar Network, aims to facilitate both buyers and sellers in achieving the most efficient NFT trades where they are not constrained by the chains.
AxelarSea is a one-stop interoperable NFT marketplace across chains where buyers can pay for an NFT on any supported chain using a token from a completely different chain, and sellers can list an NFT for sale on any supported chain while receiving payments on another chain.
AxelarSea’s goal is to provide solutions that
- For sellers: A seller can sell an NFT on one chain (chain A) while putting up an asking price and receiving payment on another chain (chain B).
- For buyers: A buyer can place an order for an NFT hosted on one chain (chain A) and pay with tokens from another chain (chain C).
Even though the buyer’s payment is made on chain C, it will be automatically transferred to chain B via the Axelar Network, as requested by the seller. The buyer is not required to own any assets/wallets on chain B.
Painpoints in the current NFT marketplace
Currently, the payment tokens and the NFT must be on the same chain. If an NFT is hosted on one chain, for example, the buyer must pay with a token and have a wallet on that chain. Even though some marketplaces (such as EVM) operate on multiple chains within the same ecosystem, there is no single universal marketplace that connects and facilitates transactions across multiple ecosystems. As a result, there are a plethora of marketplaces that complicate the experience of both buyers and sellers.
How does AxelarSea help buyers?
For most buyers, they don’t possess asset on all available chains in the blockchain ecosystem; hence, if they want to buy an NFT on a chain that they don’t have any token, they have to move their assets to that chain, incurring high fees and security risks/delay through bridges.
Let’s consider the following example situation:
- An NFT is hosted on Ethereum chain with an asking price quoted in $ETH.
- A potential buyer has assets as $LUNA on Terra chain.
Using a tradiational NFT marketplace, the buyer has to go through the following steps:
- Looking for a bridge that support asset transfer from Terra chain to Ethereum chain.
- Looking for an asset supported by the bridge. For example, some bridges might not support $LUNA, and only support $UST as a transferring asset.
- Searching for DEX on Terra to exchange $LUNA to an asset supported by the bridge, which is $UST in this example.
- Creating a wallet that supports Ethereum chain.
- Funding the Ethereum chain wallet with $ETH for transaction fees.
- Searching for DEX on Ethereum chain to exchange the asset supported by the bridge ($UST) to $ETH.
Steps needed for a buyer to buy an NFT on a chain that he/she doesn’t have an asset on, as described above, are riddled with problems, that can be categorized as following:
- High fees: The buyer has to spent fees on many steps including making exchange on DEX on both chains, the bridge, and funding wallet on the new chain.
- Inconvenience: The buyer has to research for the bridge that support the transfer, the wallet for the new chain, how to fund the new wallet, and the DEX on the new and unfamiliar chain.
- Security: The buyer experiences security risk (for example, phishing attack) when searching for bridge and DEX on an unfamiliar chain.
- Time consuming: The buyer wastes time to execute several steps and doing research of the new chain.
Solutions (via AxelarSea)
Many of the steps required by a buyer described above are automatically executed by AxelarSea. The buyer only need to supply $LUNA to AxelarSea on Terra chain. AxelarSea system will perform the following actions.
- Transfer the asset to Ethereum chain via Axelar Network (becoming $aLUNA)
- Make an exchange to $ETH through DEX supported by AxelarSea
- Transfer $ETH to the seller
Notice that the buyer doesn’t need to setup wallet on Ethereum chain at all.
How does AxelarSea help sellers?
Currently, each NFT marketplace is confined to a certain ecosystem. If a seller wishes to place sales of his multiple NFTs on several ecosystems, he/she has to interact with multiple marketplaces, complicating the experience. For example, if a seller owns NFTs on three different blockchain ecosystem (such as EVM, Polkadot, and Cosmos), he/she would need to interact with three different marketplaces — one for each ecosystem.
A seller has to interact with multiple marketplaces — each specific to a certain blockchain ecosystem. This setup leads to the problems, that can be categorized as follow.
- Hard to track: With several NFTs being listed for sale on multiple marketplaces specific for each chain, the seller will have a hard time tracking all the sales and struggle to visualize the big picture.
- Limited potential buyers: The sale is exposed only to the buyers in the chains supported by the marketplace.
- Time consuming: A seller would spend a large amount of time trying to manage his sales over multiple marketplaces.
Solutions (via AxelarSea)
AxelarSea provides a platform for sellers to list NFTs from any chain while also attracting potential buyers from any chain. The seller can manage all of his sales by simply visiting the AxelarSea website and connecting his wallets.
Try out for yourself!
- Website: https://axelarsea.com/
- Learn more: https://axelarsea.gitbook.io/axelarsea-docs/
Having a question?
- Email: axelarsea@gmail.com
- Discord: https://discord.gg/dUwcAj7C46
- Telegram: https://t.me/Axelarsea
