OpenSea Enables NFT Purchases With Credit Cards, Apple Pay

By Scott Chipolina

Buyers on OpenSea, one of the world’s leading marketplaces for non-fungible tokens, can soon pay for NFTs with a credit card, debit card, or Apple Pay—without having any cryptocurrency.

The move comes through a partnership with MoonPay, a fintech player that builds payment infrastructure in the crypto space, which announced the news Friday morning. MoonPay is also the company that has worked with so many celebrities to facilitate their Bored Ape NFT purchase.

The move is likely aimed at bringing in more mainstream buyers, similar to the strategy NBA Top Shot took when it was red-hot one year ago. It also comes during a busy time for OpenSea, which has made its fair share of crypto headlines in recent months.

OpenSea and NFTs

Last month, OpenSea announced that it generated over $5 billion in total trading volume in January between Ethereum and Polygon sales. This broke OpenSea’s previous record, which was set in August of 2021. 

Just this week, the NFT marketplace also confirmed that it will start listing Solana NFTs this month. It is not yet clear exactly when in April OpenSea will start listing Solana NFTs, but the NFT marketplace tweeted a short teaser video that described the eventual move as the “best kept secret in Web3.” 

Solana surged on the news. NFT trading volume on Solana increased by over 80% on March 30, and the price of SOL itself also surged—capping off a near 24% price increase in the last seven days. 

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for OpenSea. In January 2022, an exploit on the NFT marketplace saw a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT sell for $1,700 worth of ETH, well below its floor price at the time. In February, OpenSea users also reported that NFTs from Cool Cats and Doodle collections had been stolen. OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer described the event as a phishing attack. 

“We don’t believe it’s connected to the OpenSea website. It appears 32 users thus far have signed a malicious payload from an attacker, and some of their NFTs were stolen,” Finzer said at the time.

And last fall, an OpenSea employee personally profited from buying NFTs just before they were featured on the site's front page; Finzer said the incident was "misframed" as insider trading.

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