OpenSea vs Mintable

What is OpenSea?

After the release of CryptoKitties, two friends realized that their passion laid in NFTs (non-fungible tokens). They joined many Discord servers to join in with the hype and realized quickly that there needed to be a place where people could easily buy and sell the assets among each other. The pair, Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, decided to create the world’s first NFT marketplace and founded OpenSea in December 2017.

Since that time, the platform has continually grown and now has a library of more than 34 million assets. People can browse any category at random or use the filtering system to find products that interest them. In August 2021, Opensea.io sold more than $3.4 billion in crypto art, securing its place in NFT history.

Some of the digital items on the platform include GIFs, images, virtual worlds, domains, and NFT trading cards. Users are able to sort by specific collections (Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Meebits), by artist (Beeple, Jose Delbo), or 200 other categorizations.

While the platform originally ran on the Ethereum blockchain alone, it has since utilized both Polygon and Klatyn. Through the wonder of blockchain technology, users can buy digital assets through smart contracts, knowing they are getting something rare and unique.

What is Mintable?

Founded by Zack Burks in 2018, Mintable is a Singapore-based NFT marketplace that is known for incorporating 3 different minting schemes. Not only can artists mint their NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain in the normal way, but they can also take advantage of gasless minting and “Printable.”

• Gasless Minting – Mintable has created a way for artists to mint ERC721 NFTs without having to pay gas fees, allowing them to create and list the items on the platform for free.
• Printable Minting – Artists can create collections and put them up for sale. After a set period of time, if only a few of the collection has sold, the artist can remove the rest, making those few NFTs potentially more valuable.

Mintable was built on the Ethereum blockchain and also supports Zilliqa. The platform also has its own token which buyers and sellers will receive at the point of transaction. These minting tokens can be used to participate in the Mintable DAO, allowing account holders to have a voice on how the platform operates as a whole.

OpenSea vs Mintable: Audience

Founded in December 2017, OpenSea was the first NFT marketplace that allowed people to buy and sell NFTs through their wallets. The founders grew their own personal passion for the project participating in early Discord servers and connecting with people who would later become part of their loyal userbase. The platform has been trusted for years and many people use them as they have the largest database of products.

Mintable attracts many NFT creators who are just starting out and are attracted to gasless minting. While there are many creative artists who use the platform, as anyone can upload a png, mp4, or any compatible file to create a token without cost, there is a lot of low-quality work that is listed on the platform. That being said, many smaller creators need to market themselves off-platform regardless of the marketplace they choose.

OpenSea vs Mintable: Supported Currencies

Mintable allows users to purchase NFTs with ETH and ZIL. OpenSea allows its buyers to use both ETH and DAI along with 150+ Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies. Some of these include REVV, UNI, WHALE, and WKLAY. You cannot purchase NFTs on either platform using fiat currency (USD, GBP, AUD, etc) or bitcoin.

While it isn’t a traditional DAO, Mintable has an NFT DAO that uses non-fungible tokens to allow owners to vote on future branding. Similar to platforms that use governance tokens (such as Rarible’s RARI and SuperRare’s RARE), Mintable users can earn $MINT by buying and selling on the marketplace, buying votes on the contract/bonding curve, or buying them on the secondary market.

OpenSea vs Mintable: Supported Wallets

While Mintable only supports the browser extension MetaMask, OpenSea will work with any of the following: MetaMask, Bitski, Coinbase, Arkane Network, Fortmatic, Dapper, Authereum, and Torus.

OpenSea vs Mintable: Other Differences

Some of the other ways OpenSea and Mintable differ are as follows:

• Platform Fees – OpenSea has the lowest transaction fees at 2.5% to the buyer. On the other hand, Mintable also charges 2.5% for normal items but increases the fees to 5% on gasless items and 10% on printable series items.
• Royalties – NFT artists who create digital assets on OpenSea can choose to set a variable percentage for future royalties (most choose between 5-10%). On Mintable, those who choose to do gasless minting will not be eligible for royalties. Those who use regular minting will get a 5% royalty.
• Minting Gas Payments – OpenSea uses “lazy minting” that allows users to upload the asset without paying the gas fees until the item is sold. Mintable has three ways to mint. The first is gasless minting which allows the user to mint without paying but has limited options on how they can benefit from their work in the future. The second is through printables, allowing an artist to offer a set number of items, then remove unsold items at a later date. The third is regular minting.

OpenSea vs Mintable: Conclusion

Due to the large database of NFTs, the ability to track favorite collections, and versatility for new NFT artists, OpenSea will likely be the ideal choice for most creators and collectors. While Mintable offers gasless minting, OpenSea does allow delayed minting to the point of transaction and will allow artists to set up a royalty system that works for them and their work.

That being said, many people use either marketplace safely and effectively. Neither will ever take custody of your NFTs, allowing you to trade them with others without worrying that they could be lost in a DDOS attack on the platform. Each only works as a service that allows buyers and sellers to connect their wallets.