Being a part of a tech-savvy and social-friendly world, we look out to sharing many artworks, infographics, memes and other digital assets with our acquaintances. The purpose could be either entertainment, acquiring knowledge or creating awareness. Have you ever wondered about the actual creator or owner of this digital property? The answer to all these wonders lies in NFT.
NFT is an acronym for Non-fungible tokens. It is a unique digital asset based on blockchain that you can buy, sell, trade and own. When a commodity is non-fungible, it means that it not mutually interchangeable. What’s most appealing about NFT is its unique piece of digital content like texts, images, audio recordings, trading cards, artworks, domain names and in-game items. As NFTs exist on the blockchain, peer-to-peer transactions become feasible without any involvement of intermediaries.
Some of the crucial characteristics of NFTs include:
- Indivisibility: NFTs cannot be divided into small denominations as they exist in a complete form.
- Verifiability: The information about a token and its owner gets easily verified.
- Non-interoperability: It is impossible to exchange the items as each token is unique.
- Indestructible: It is impossible to destroy or replicate NFTs as the overall NFT data is stored on the blockchain network through smart contracts.
- Tradability: As NFTs are traded on different crypto marketplaces, advanced trading systems offer endless opportunities to NFT owners.
With the growing traction of NFT as a new asset class in the crypto space, NFT marketplaces will continue to gain momentum in 2021. NFT marketplaces are decentralized platforms that facilitate users to create, buy, sell and store non-fungible tokens. When looking to build peer-to-peer marketplace platforms, it is essential to note the following important features.
Storefront:
As the NFT auction platform is a marketplace, it should have a storefront. The storefront must provide relevant information to the users regarding the items such as bids, owners, preview and price history. For example, the Opensea platform offers a display chain to users for identifying smart contracts, thereby ensuring the authenticity of the purchased NFT.
Easy Search for Items
For any marketplace, it is always better to have tagging and category management system for searching collectibles. Users can easily find out the assets of their interest from the categories like arts, music, photography, domains, etc. Including a search bar on the site and classes makes searching and retrieving the required asset more convenient.
Filters
The inclusion of filters helps the users navigate the site, especially when the marketplace is developed for many collectibles. This feature facilitates the users to choose collectibles based on category, listing status, payment and collection. So, the time between NFT selection and purchase is significantly reduced.
Using filters, it becomes easier to explore a site, specifically if you plan to build a marketplace for many collectibles. Adding the filtering feature enables the users to select items by payment method, listing status, category and collection. The most popular filters like highest price, lowest price, recently listed, and most viewers positively impact the user experience.
Creation of Listings
A user should be able to create and submit collectibles. Using this feature, a user should upload files and fill in the token information such as name, tags, description. It is advisable to make the process of creating a collection easy, quick and convenient. With this feature, the users can upload files and fill up the basic token details like name, description, and tags on the creation page.
Status of Listing
This feature is beneficial to users in choosing NFTs for purchase. Thus, buying NFTs becomes easier and faster for the users through searching, sorting and filtering. Status of listings assists in navigating thoroughly and specifically for the collectible verification process. With this feature, users can inform sellers about the verification stage of their collectibles.
Buying and Bidding
Incorporating buying and bidding features are the crucial stages in building an NFT marketplace. Users get more control over the bids due to the setting of the expiration date and the bidding watchlist help in better understanding and tracking the current status of recommendations.
Wallet
This feature helps the users to have wallets for sending, receiving and storing the non-fungible tokens. The most convenient way to integrate this feature is by connecting the NFT users with their preferred wallets like Coinbase, Formatic, WalletConnect.
Ratings and Ranking
Adding this feature to the NFT marketplace assists the users in choosing NFTs. It can also be used for rewarding the best sellers and prove their reliability.
With the ranking feature, NFT users can keep track of the demand and change in the token position. NFT rankings need hourly updations to display the specifications like volume, price and graph of behavior.
NFT marketplace features are not limited to this list, as every platform provides unique functionalities. It is possible to try and include some outstanding features to raise user engagement. For instance, building a strong community on the podium with forum creation or adopting a push notification system to inform users about new collectibles could add value to the platforms.
The rising momentum and prominence of NFTs have raised curiosity among vivid collectors, who are striving to acquire unique digital assets. It is crucial to know NFT marketplaces differ from other e-commerce platforms and add advanced features that passionate fans of digital collectibles. If you are planning to build a NFT Marketplace, consider hiring a NFT development company with a team of developers who understands the working and technology components required to build the NFT marketplace.
