OpenSea released an app – but it’s for browsing, not buying and selling – TechCrunch



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It’s a big day for Amazon’s decentralized internet – OpenSea now has an app for iOS and Android. For most businesses, having a mobile app is a milestone you’ll hit before you hit a $ 1.5 billion valuation. But like any store, whether or not you sell NFT art, there’s a steep price to pay for App Store transactions, whether you’re on Android or iOS. Maybe that’s why OpenSea’s shiny new app is only for browsing NFTs, not buying or selling them. For the background, OpenSea recorded a transaction volume of $ 3.4 billion out of two million transactions in August. With Apple and Google taking 30% of the transactions in the app, if that volume had been traded on the new app… what would 30% of $ 3.4 billion be?

Perhaps more of a roadblock, there is still no way to make in-app payments with crypto. If OpenSea wanted to support buying and selling, it would have to expand its infrastructure for USD payments and push more users to it. But part of the appeal of OpenSea is that it’s a crypto-native platform, heavily reliant on the Ethereum blockchain, that makes it easier for people to access information about when a NFT got hit, who hit it, how it got traded etc. upset the existing user ecosystem if the startup pushes the platform to be more economical.

On the OpenSea app, users can connect their profile, browse NFTs, Favorite NFTs, search and filter NFTs, and view collection and item statistics. When you view an NFT in the app, a button appears that allows you to share the NFT outside of the app. Rarible, another NFT market, released a mobile app about a month ago. Like the OpenSea app, on the Rarible app you can only browse NFTs, not buy, sell, or trade them.

Image credits: OpenSea

OpenSea has yet to answer questions from TechCrunch about the company’s plans for the app, including whether users could ever buy and sell NFTs in the app. It wouldn’t be the first time crypto has been traded on an app, as even PayPal now allows you to pay with crypto. Instead, the app can perhaps offer a way to help new users integrate into the NFT space, providing them with a simple and user-friendly way to browse NFT art without knowing anything about wallets, blockchains. or monkeys.

This app was unveiled just days after an OpenSea executive was accused of trading NFTs on inside information. The company announced on its blog on Wednesday that the employee had since resigned.

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