OpenSea Officially Launches On BNB Chain

Opensea is incorporating BNB Chain into its Web3 marketplace protocol, Seaport, which will enable multiple, real-time creator payouts, improved collection management, and the avoidance of high gas (the cryptocurrency industry’s term for transaction fees) by creators, all while reducing the cost of setup for new users.

The lack of availability of BNB Chain NFTs on more popular exchanges had been a problem for end customers who had previously only been able to see them on Binance’s NFT marketplace.

With the addition of BNB Chain, OpenSea now offers eight distinct chains to its customers including the Avalanche C-Chain which was recently added to the NFT marketplace.

Gwendolyn Regina, BNB’s Investment Director, stated: “The integration will bring a large number of creators into the wider system, as well as empower the creators and NFT initiatives inside the BNB Chain ecosystem.” 

OpenSea To Tackle Ethereum Network Congestion

The BNB Chain is a cheaper alternative to Ethereum, the dominant blockchain for NFT marketshare, and therefore this development could create competition for ethereum.

As a result of Ethereum’s adoption of the non-fungible ERC-721 standard, minting these tokens can cost users tens of dollars due to the charge that must be paid to the blockchain to process the transaction.

Nonetheless, network congestion might worsen on Ethereum during NFT events with heavy user participation. Bored Ape Yacht Club’s and Yuga Labs’ Otherside NFT property sale ran into problems earlier this year, with gas lost on faulty transactions reportedly reaching over $5 million. Yuga Labs issued an apology and refunds to those who were affected. 

Meanwhile, BNB’s 24-hour price chart shows a small improvement of roughly 1% in response to the news, but the true impact of this integration is likely to be felt when additional collections are added to the marketplace and volume climbs inversely.

More than a hundred collections have been added to OpenSea through the BNB Chain in just the first few hours since the integration went live.