The NFT marketplaces OpenSea and Aavegotchi: An overview

The non-fungible token (NFT) segment is a growing market in the dynamic environment of cryptocurrencies. These tokens represent something unique, such as a piece of art, an event, or an achievement — the possibilities are endless.

Thousands of different NFTs circulate on many distributed cryptographic decentralized platforms. Due to their large number alone, it is often difficult to get an overview of these tokens, especially for potential investors.

NFT marketplaces try to make this market more transparent and simplify trading with NFTs for collectors.

Therefore, in this article, we want to present and compare the two marketplaces OpenSea and Aavegotchi. We will explain why we specifically present these two markets, what they have in common, and what differences they have. Furthermore, we will discuss in which directions the two platforms want to develop.

What is OpenSea?

OpenSea is touted as the world’s largest marketplace for NFTs. With a transaction volume that surpasses many of its competitors, OpenSea offers a variety of virtual items ranging from digital collectibles to domain names, digital art, card games, and more.

Put simply, the platform acts as a central point of contact for all non-fungible tokens. On OpenSea, anyone can buy or sell NFTs through a smart contract.

Users can also customize their NFTs and sell them to a target audience in the marketplace. Currently, OpenSea hosts more than 1.2 million NFTs and has tools that allow developers to create NFTs and integrate them into games with minimal effort.

Furthermore, OpenSea has already incorporated other NFT marketplaces such as Rarible into its platform, offering its users even more bundled choices.

What is Aavegotchi?

In comparison with OpenSea, the Aavegotchi platform is completely different.

It was launched in July 2020 by the team behind Aave, an endeavor offering new alternatives to yield farming. This project brings entertaining game mechanics to the platform to support a new kind of DeFi experience for its users.

The whole game revolves around Aavegotchis, which are Ethereum-based crypto-collectors built on NFT technology. An Aavegotchi generates a Token from Aave after a user invests in it. Over time, an Aavegotchi helps to create value, both by generating interest on the assets invested in the Aavegotchi for as long as they remain invested, and by interacting with the large Aavegotchi metaverse.

This unique combination of decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFTs offers an opportunity to generate returns and long-term profits. The NFTs of the Aavegotchi follow a similar structure that which other blockchain-based games like CryptoKitties also implement in their game economy.

What the Aavegotchi platform offers to the blockchain gaming sector is DeFi models such as collateral stakes, dynamic rarity, rarity farming, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), and smart contract implementations. Put simply, the goal is to use DeFi and yield farming concepts to create NFTs that have value and can be improved over time.

At the same time, the Aavegotchi platform also offers itself as an NFT marketplace, as it allows investors to buy the NFT Aavegotchis and other NFT values of the platform. It is the best example of a successful all-inclusive blockchain game that supports investing in platform NFTs in the in-house marketplace through simplicity and market incentives.

What are commonalities?

Both OpenSea (the largest NFT marketplace) and Aavegotchi (the best DeFi and NFT investment game with integrated NFT marketplace) have one major commonality: they make the NFT market much more accessible for investors. Even though both are still relatively young ventures, they have established themselves in the community as the best-known projects due to their quality and creativity. Both thus offer a good starting point for potential investors without getting in each other’s way. It is even possible to sell and buy Aavegotchis on OpenSea.

What are the differences and prospects?

Both platforms offer good starting points for investment in NFTs but also differ fundamentally.

OpenSea is both a platform that offers a marketplace for all who want to deal with NFTs and a provider of NFT-creating software for artists or integration into video games. Their goal is to remain the market leader and therefore they integrate more and more other NFT marketplaces like Ririble.com as well as other NFT platforms and products. Recently, they have added support for ENS (Ethereum Name Service) names that allow unique wallet names to be traded as NFTs, as well as support for the cryptotickets.com platform that makes cryptographic entry tickets available through OpenSea. By offering these revolutionary products, OpenSea wants to secure its position as a top dog in the industry.

On the other hand, Aavegotchi is a platform that playfully takes investors by the hand and helps them invest in the specific NFTs of the platform. Aavegotchi neither integrates with other platforms nor is currently planning for an expansion for market functionality beyond its in-house marketplace. They prefer to concentrate on the strengths of a good idea and a loyal community. Towards the end of this year, they plan to move to Mainnet. With this move, they want to establish a long-term, technically stable setup to keep and expand their community.

Summary

In this article, we show why both OpenSea and the Aavegotchi platform are market leaders in their respective fields. They both offer an easy way for investors to invest in NFTs and simplify the complex and large market.

To continue to be leaders in this field, both platforms invest heavily in new ideas and techniques, helping to attract attention and customers for new products and providing a technically stable environment for the long term.

This shows that NFTs are not just a passing trend of the crypto scene, but rather a long-term movement.