OpenSea Adds Avalanche NFT Support

By Kate Irwin

Avalanche has entered the chat.

OpenSea has added NFTs from the Avalanche blockchain to its online marketplace, the company announced Tuesday. 

The marketplace—which saw roughly $350 million in Ethereum NFT volume traded last month—now supports NFTs from seven different blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, Klaytn, Solana, Optimism, Arbitrum, and now Avalanche. 

Avalanche is an open-source network with the native token AVAX and three different blockchains, one of which is called the C-Chain. The C-Chain is optimized for Ethereum compatibility and smart contracts, which NFTs use (NFTs can exist on Avalanche’s C-Chain or X-Chain).

While OpenSea’s announcement is good news for Avalanche NFT fans, it remains to be seen whether the increased visibility will bolster the blockchain’s NFT economy. Some Avalanche proponents might call it an “Ethereum killer,” but when it comes to NFTs, Avalanche has barely made a dent. 

According to CryptoSlam data, Avalanche saw $2.4 million in total NFT volume traded in September across roughly 25,000 transactions and just 4,488 buyers. 

To put that in perspective, Solana—which launched around the same time as Avalanche—saw nearly $130 million in total NFT volume traded last month across nearly 3 million transactions and 143,000 buyers. That means Solana processed about 193% more NFT-related funds than Avalanche in September and boasts 187% more users trading NFTs.

While the Avalanche NFT economy is small, it seems to be leaning into that fact. According to OpenSea’s rankings, Avalanche’s top two NFT collections of all time are the “Smol Joes” and the “Smol Lands.” The “Smol Apas” and the “Smol Creeps” also make the top ten list. 

But let’s not forget about the “Smol Turds,” who jumped onto the poop-themed Ethereum NFT trend this summer of intentionally ugly and gross art. 

Despite minting back in July with the slogan “Turd is love. Turd is life,” the “Smol Turds” minimum purchase price has skyrocketed 996% in the past 24 hours. At time of writing, a Smol Turd NFT will set you back about 200 AVAX, which is roughly $3,200.

The Avalanche NFT market also pumped a bit earlier this year with the Crabada game and Yield Hunt Hunters, which have raked in $227 million and $81 million since their launches, respectively.

While meme-based NFTs currently dominate its landscape, Ava Labs’ Business Development Lead Dominic Carbonaro believes Avalanche’s NFT creators are just getting started.

“Avalanche’s NFT community has a unique identity and passion for experimenting with both the art and applications of NFTs,” Carbonaro said in a statement. “Creators here are still just scratching the surface.”

While OpenSea is not the first NFT marketplace to offer Avalanche NFTs, OpenSea’s Avalanche-supporting competitors aren’t exactly seeing numbers. The Avalanche NFT economy is spread out across five marketplaces, the largest of which is dedicated to the Chikn NFTs—a collection of chickens holding guns, smoking pipes, or wearing Ethereum bling. 

According to Dune data, competing NFT marketplaces NFTrade, Kalao, Campfire, and JoePegs are each seeing just a couple hundred unique daily users transacting on Avalanche.

Perhaps OpenSea will send Avalanche NFTs to the big leagues—or perhaps not.

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