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Ever since the news of Visa buying a CryptoPunk broke, the world of NFTs has gone into a frenzy. Just last month, the largest NFT marketplace in the world, OpenSea, saw trading volumes surge to USD 3.4 billion which is 10 times the volume for July 2021. And with Sotheby’s recently closing an auction round for Bored Ape Yacht Club, we can safely say that NFT’s have arrived in the big leagues.
We are starting to see institutional investors and celebrities setting their social media pfp as NFTs, traditional art houses hosting NFT events, businesses buying into these collectibles and popular artists segueing into digital art. Even Hollywood has joined the scene. In short, individuals and institutions who would previously be considered as gatekeepers of an elite club can now be seen FOMO’ing (Fear Of Missing Out) into Discord servers. And yes, the NFTverse has its own NFTspeak.
Visa is now the proud owner of this piece (OpenSea link)
NFTs are not a recent crypto fad though. They have been around for many years. From Etheria to MoonCats to Curio Cards to CryptoPunks to Creeps & Weirdos to CryptoKitties to EtherRocks to the “Lost Robbies” and so on. These tokens of digital scarcity have only recently come into limelight after several multi-million dollar purchases became major news items – CryptoPunk #7804 selling for USD 7.5 million, Beeple’s magnum opus Everydays: the First 5000 Days selling for USD 69.3 million to Metakovan and more recently, the Feisty Doge NFT going for the highest implied valuation on fractional art. Popular Turkish artists like Murat Pak have also featured in some of these high profile sales.
Binance is a household name in the cryptosphere and offers services across the spectrum when it comes to anything related to crypto. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that BINANCE also operates one of the most popular NFT platforms out there – The Binance NFT Marketplace. The genius of it all lies in the fact that the millions of Binance users can access this NFT marketplace with their existing Binance account and transact with the funds in them. No need for new login IDs, wallets etc. New users to Binance would need to sign up though to be able to use the marketplace. Once signed up, all products become accessible with the same pool of liquidity – crypto exchange, derivatives, loans, NFTs etc.
The Marketplace hosts leading artists such as those from Vogue Singapore, The Fabricant, Balmain etc.
Getting started with the Binance NFT marketplace is easy. Simply go to https://www.binance.com/en/nft and Log In. Alternatively, if you’re already logged into Binance, you will see NFT in the top banner. However, if you are new to Binance, you will need to Register first with your email ID or phone number and a password of your choice to set up your account. Once signed up, you will have to complete Intermediate Verification for KYC. It is recommended to set up Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) as well for added security.
Signing Up to Binance takes seconds
Once you are logged in, you can click on Marketplace on the top banner or go to https://www.binance.com/en/nft/market to see all items listed. NFTs can be purchased with BNB, BUSD or ETH. You can use the search bar and filters to narrow down on your choices. NFTs can either be purchased at the fixed price set by the owner or can be bid for in auctions. There are also mystery boxes that you can partake in. More on mystery boxes later. If your Binance account already has funds in it, you are good to go. However, if you need to deposit or purchase funds, just click on User Center on the top banner and go to the Crypto Asset tab.
Click on Buy or Deposit button to get the respective crypto funds to your Binance account
Once you have sufficient funds in your account to make an NFT purchase, you can go to the Marketplace and start looking for NFTs. You can filter by price to look for pocket-friendly items as well. NFTs with fixed price have it mentioned in their description while those with ongoing auctions are mentioned with the highest current bid in their description. Once you have made a choice, simply click on the item and then click Buy Now or Place a Bid accordingly. Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of an NFT. If you bid on an item, you will have to wait a little till the end of the auction to see if you won.
Buying and owning an NFT couldn't get easier
All your owned NFTs will show up under the NFT Asset tab in Collections in the User Center. To list one of your owned NFTs for sale, click on the item and click on List NFT. You can then put a Set Price or Highest Bid (i.e. auction) to sell your NFT. Binance reviews all sale submissions before listing them in the market. So it could take 4-5 hours for your item to show up on the marketplace. At this moment, minting a new NFT for sale is possible on an invite-only basis. This is done by Binance to ensure high quality mints by verified creators.
Once your submission is reviewed successfully, the item will appear in the marketplace for sale
Apart from the usual fixed price and auction items, Binance also has something called Mystery Box not seen elsewhere. A Mystery Box is a surprise NFT contained inside a closed digital gift box. No one knows what’s inside until it’s opened. Many projects choose to mint their NFTs as Mystery Boxes to give Binance users a fair chance to win a super, super rare (SSR) NFT. There are 4 levels of rarity in these NFTs with SSR being the most scarce. To get a Mystery Box, you can click on Mystery Boxes in the top banner or go to https://www.binance.com/en/nft/blindBox. Choose a box you like and click on it. And then click on Buy to purchase. You can choose to open your Mystery Box to reveal the secret inside or keep it sealed. There is also a secondary market for Mystery Boxes where you can buy and sell opened and unopened boxes.
You can filter for unopened mystery boxes available for sale in the secondary market if you missed the original listing
Since the Binance NFT Marketplace is a centralised platform, there is no uncertainty with gas or on-chain transaction fees. This removes worries related to gas wars and sniping. Platform fee for any sale is just 1% which is low compared to 2.5% on other NFT marketplaces. Because the platform shares Binance’s liquidity for funds, this means the NFT Marketplace has one of the world’s highest readily available liquidity for trading. This is a huge benefit of being a part of the world’s biggest crypto ecosystem. Currently, deposits and withdrawals of NFTs are not possible but will be available soon. Assuming it will be on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), gas prices are expected to be very low. Once that happens, I expect the Binance NFT Marketplace to become a hub of NFT lovers worldwide in the near future.
Disclaimer: The author has no vested interest in any of the projects or artists mentioned in this article. Any BUSD/BNB/ETH holdings are unrelated to this piece. The author would also like to thank Abhijoy Sarkar, Saurabh Hasija and Prateek Saraf for their generous inputs, anecdotes and research.
This article is an English translation of Omur Cataltepe's recent Medium article with full republish rights secured from Omur.
