The market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has cooled off a lot in the last two years, dropping 90% in 2022. Despite the bearish decline, NFTs remain a multi-billion dollar market. So what are the best NFT marketplaces in 2024?

What is an NFT marketplace?

An NFT marketplace is an online platform where users can buy and sell NFTs, a type of digital asset with multiple use cases. NFTs can represent digital artwork, allowing users to sell a unique token that can signify ownership of the art.

They also have a major application in the skins market for gaming, allowing users to buy and sell in-game assets like clothing, weapons, and other items. Most NFT sales have been art-related, although music, collectibles, and real estate have also been traded as NFTs.

NFT marketplaces also facilitate the actual creation of NFTs in a process known as minting NFTs.

How do NFT marketplaces work?

NFT marketplaces typically work by charging a fee for any NFTs sold, and some of them allow the original artist to collect royalties on future sales of their work. Users can mint NFTs on blockchain networks, most commonly the Ethereum network. To join a marketplace, you need to register an account and connect a digital wallet like MetaMask.

From there, you can upload artwork and mint an NFT by following the directions on your platform of choice or simply browse NFTs that you’d like to buy. You can also research the market by doing this in preparation for the sale of any NFTs you own, and list an NFT for sale.

To buy an NFT, you’ll need cryptocurrency in your wallet, and the most common crypto to use for buying NFTs is ETH.

Best NFT platforms: top 7 marketplaces in 2024

Let’s take a look at the best and most popular NFT marketplaces in 2024.

OpenSea

OpenSea is the world’s first NFT marketplace, launching in 2017. It remains one of the biggest NFT marketplaces, retaining its first-to-market advantage and offering the widest selection of assets for trade. However, Magic Eden and Blur have overtaken OpenSea in popularity this year.

OpenSea has had over one million active users since launch, and 140,000 accounts still trade NFTs each month on the platform. It offers a wide range of features for users to choose from.

The platform is non-custodial, meaning users don’t have to give over control of their assets to OpenSea when listing them for sale.

Fees: 0% – 2.5%

Minting Fees: 0% – 2.5%

Liquidity: High

Royalties: Optional fees from 0% to 10%

Rarible

Rarible is a major NFT marketplace founded in 2020. The platform offers competitively low fees for trading NFTs, and focuses on trading rare digital assets. Another key feature of the platform is the high royalties available to creators.

While setting the royalty feature too high can discourage users from buying NFTs in an effort to flip, artists with in-demand assets can find high royalties to be very profitable and can choose what amount they want to set for royalties.

Fees: 7.5% – 0.5%, depending on the asset’s value. 0% available when staking native token.

Minting Fees: 0%

Liquidity: Medium

Royalties: Up to 50%

Magic Eden

Magic Eden is an NFT marketplace that offers NFTs minted on the Solana blockchain rather than Ethereum. Solana is a competitor to Ethereum aimed at becoming a faster and more scalable way to create decentralized applications.

However, Magic Eden has expanded to include the trade of Ethereum NFTs and Bitcoin Ordinals, or Bitcoin NFTs.

Trading Fees: 2%

Minting Fees: Around 0.02 to 0.04 SOL

Liquidity: High

Royalties: Choose between 0%, 50%, or 100%

Blur

Blur is an NFT platform catering more towards professional NFT traders seeking profit on their trades. it recently overtook Magic Eden and OpenSea to become the biggest NFT marketplace in the world by trading volume.

Where earlier NFT marketplaces had a more casual approach towards the market, Blur sought to make trading cheaper for end-users and does not charge any transaction fees. The platform launched with very low royalty fees, contributing to OpenSea’s to scrap mandatory royalties altogether.

Blur is a decentralized app running on the Ethereum network and users can vote on platform governance using the native BLUR token. It offers collateralized lending and allows users to search OpenSea listings from Blur. The transparent bidding feature also allows users to view the bidding history on an NFT, granting more insight into the market value of their NFTs.

Trading Fees: 0%

Minting Fees: Dependent on current Ethereum gas fees

Liquidity: High

Royalties: 0.5% fixed rate

LooksRare

LooksRare is a decentralized app that allows for NFT trading and is governed by its own community. 100% of this NFT marketplace’s fees were initially earned by users who stake the native LOOKS token, an attractive incentive scheme that puts the community first. This scheme has been discontinued, and the platform now offers rewards through a more complex series of DeFi-inspired incentive programs.

Trading Fees: 2%

Minting Fees: Dependent on current Ethereum gas fees

Liquidity: Low

Royalties: 0% option, with higher options available

Binance NFT Marketplace

The world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, Binance, also offers an NFT marketplace. In true Binance fashion, the marketplace offers a wide selection with low fees. Binance NFT Marketplace offers Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain NFTs.

Users should be advised that Binance has been subject to multiple lawsuits and legal actions over the last year, potentially placing the exchange in a vulnerable position when it comes to regulatory enforcement.

Trading Fees: 1% (seller only)

Minting Fees: Ethereum (ETH): 0.50 ETH; BNB Smart Chain (BSC): 1.00 BNB

Liquidity: Medium

Royalties: 1%

Nifty Gateway

Nifty Gateway is an early entry to the NFT markplace sector, founded in 2018 and becoming known for exclusive artist listings of NFTs. Despite not having the high volumes it boasted in 2021, it remains a reliable nft marketplace.

Trading Fees: 2.5% (non-custodial) – 5% (custodial)

Minting Fees: Ethereum (ETH): 0.50 ETH; BNB Smart Chain (BSC): 1.00 BNB

Liquidity: Medium

Royalties: 1%

What’s the best NFT marketplace in 2024?

The NFT marketplace with the biggest market share in 2024 is Blur, and by quite a large margin. At the time of writing, Blur’s 7-day trading volume amounts to million. Magic Eden comes in second place at million, followed by OpenSea with million.

Blur’s decentralized approach and decision to charge no transaction fees have made it the clear outlier when it comes to choosing one winner from our NFT marketplace list.

Frequently asked questions