OpenSea vs. Mintable

You might’ve heard plenty about bitcoin, dogecoin, and general cryptocurrency in recent years because of their growing popularity worldwide. The latest in the cryptocurrency surge is non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which allow everyday people to commodify and purchase digital items like art, music, code, domains, video game items, trading cards, and more. 

Just as people are able to buy and sell physical items, like furniture, on online websites, people can do the same with NFTs. These marketplaces rely on blockchain technology to maintain records and prove authenticity of digital items. Plus, you don’t have to invest any money in these marketplaces either to make a cryptocurrency profit. Instead, you can sell your digital products. 

OpenSea and Mintable are two of the largest and most popular NFT marketplaces on the decentralized web because they offer secure processing, extensive NFT information, and navigable sites. Yet, how do you choose between the two if they have the same foundations? 

Below, you can take a look at an overview of OpenSea and Mintable overviews alongside their main differences, including supported wallets, currency, audience, and a few specialty differences to give you a fuller picture of what each platform offers. 

What is OpenSea?

OpenSea (opensea.io), founded in 2017 in the United States, is one of the first NFT marketplaces in existence and remains one of the largest. The platform exists to give people a space to buy, sell, trade, and collect various NFTs, including virtual worlds, trading cards, collectibles, digital art, music, and domain names. 

Backed by the ethereum blockchain, OpenSea keeps records of each transaction and NFT creation. It then requires smart contract signatures from people listing their NFTs for fixed prices and auctions. 

The smart contract provides the purchasing party with proof of ownership and deems the NFT authentic. If someone chooses to list an item as an auction, they can set a starting bid price and watch the amount build for a set duration of their choosing. 

OpenSea features an easily navigable interface alongside thorough informational articles about everything first-time users need to know about NFTs. For each sale and purchase, the NFTs go into a crypto wallet for you to view at your pleasure. 

The platform has over 300,000 users, 34,000,000 plus NFTs, and more than 1,000,000 collections to browse. In addition to its size, OpenSea is backed by various industry leaders and firms, such as Coinbase, Dapper, Blockchain Capital, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz. Not to mention, the site’s been featured on TechCrunch and Bitcoin.com.

What is Mintable?

Like OpenSea, Mintable is an NFT marketplace based online and relies on ethereum blockchain to facilitate sales between platform users. The marketplace was developed in Singapore back in 2018, making it only slightly younger than OpenSea. It offers users a space to transform their digital content into digital assets using tokens, the form of cryptocurrency for buying, selling, and trading NFTs. 

Within Mintable’s NFT inventory, you can find digital items such as images, music, videos, novels, and advanced digital files. Plus, you can create your first NFT on the site effortlessly from various files, including PDFs, JPG and JPEGs, and generic documents. 

The ethereum blockchain and smart contracts completed between sales and trades provide proof of ownership for users and keep a record of the item’s transactions.

Mintable also requires users to download a crypto wallet to finance purchases and store digital collectibles. However, users do not have to invest in crypto to become NFT sellers or creators. 

Plus, Mintable offers users comprehensive guides to collecting, selling and marketplace usage alongside blog posts detailing general NFT information. In addition, people looking to jumpstart a career in selling NFTs can join Mintable’s Seller University. 

Users can purchase items directly or make bids on auction assets. Upon purchase, the seller and buyer each get a MINT token downloaded to their installed crypto wallet that gives them voting rights for the Mintable Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DOA).

Basically, the Mintable DOA means that a board of trustees or authoritarian CEO cannot make decisions on behalf of the organization. Instead, each user with MINT tokens can vote on organization changes or decisions. 

OpenSea vs. Mintable: Audience

While both NFT marketplaces offer users a platform to buy and trade digital art, trading cards, domain names, and other digital items, they each cater to different audiences. 

OpenSea NFT Marketplace Audience

The OpenSea marketplace offers a space for people who want a place to buy, sell, trade, and collect digital items. Users can build an NFT collection, earn crypto, and learn more about the NFT world. 

When it comes to OpenSea’s specific audience, the marketplace caters to everyone with a little more emphasis on beginners since it features an incredibly simple interface and provides extensive information on the subject. 

Mintable NFT Marketplace Audience

Mintable offers features similar to OpenSea, such as informational documentation, smart contract authentication, crypto wallet integration, and works on the blockchain. However, the platform primarily caters to an audience that seeks digital trading as a means of earning and building crypto. 

OpenSea vs. Mintable: Supported Currency

There are over 13,000 different cryptocurrency forms in existence, all of which aren’t always accepted on NFT platforms. That’s why OpenSea and Mintable limit their allowed currencies. 

OpenSea’s Supported Currency

OpenSea, since it is backed by the ethereum blockchain, relies on ETH as its core currency alongside USDC, WETH, and DAI. However, OpenSea also accepts 150 other payment token variations, including:

• $UNI
• $WHALE
• $DG
• 0xBTC
• AQT
• ARMY
• BNB
• BUDGET
• COIN
• CURIO
• ENJ
• HACK
• FOXX
• GEM

OpenSea does not currently accept non-digital currencies like USD or Euros. 

Mintable’s Supported Currency

When you set up your preferred crypto wallet with Mintable, you can use your credit card to fund your purchases. Payments from your credit card turn into ETH since Mintable relies on the ethereum blockchain and standard payments forms, like USD, aren’t accepted. More broadly, Mintable relies on wert.io to process payments in accordance with anti-money laundering laws.

Open Sea vs. Mintable: Supported Wallets

Not every NFT marketplace supports the same cryptocurrency wallet technology. In fact, the number of supported wallets is where OpenSea surpasses Mintable. 

OpenSea’s Supported Crypto Wallets:

• MetaMask
• Coinbase Wallet
• WalletConnect
• Fortmatic
• Kaikas
• Bitski
• Venly
• Dapper
• Authereum
• Torus
• Portis
• OperaTouch
• Trust

Keep in mind that OperaTouch and Trust crypto wallets are for mobile use only when installing them for OpenSea connectivity. 

Mintable’s Supported Crypto Wallets Include:

• MetaMask
• Trust Wallet
• Rainbow Wallet

However, Mintable prefers MetaMask specifically because of its flexibility and reliability as a popular browser extension. 

OpenSea vs. Mintable: Other Differences

While OpenSea and Mintable differ in the several main categories listed above, they also differ when it comes to fees and DOA tokens. 

OpenSea vs. Mintable: Fees

Neither OpenSea nor Mintable charges gas fees, but each requires a small portion of sales made on the sites. OpenSea charges a flat rate of 2.5% on every digital item sold on the platform. Mintable, instead, fluctuates its service fee depending on the item sold. 

If someone sells a standard item, like crypto art, Mintable charges the same OpenSea rate of 2.5%. But, if someone sells a gasless item (one that doesn’t submit a transaction to the blockchain) then Mintable charges a 5% fee. In addition, Mintable will charge a 10% fee on printable items sold. 

OpenSea vs. Mintable: DOA Tokens

The idea of giving specialty DOA tokens to users who buy and sell digital items on the platform is unique to Mintable. 

These tokens give users the ability to hold a stake in the company’s decisions and to submit ideas when they feel something needs improvement, such as a new feature or other input. The tokens offer incentives to users and keep the company autonomous, rather than in the hands of a few like many large corporations.

Quick Recap

While Mintable and OpenSea have similar foundations, providing a space for people to interact with NFTs, they aren’t the same platform type. More specifically, Mintable and OpenSea differ concerning their target audience, supported wallets, currency, fees, and specialty tokens. 

If you’re the type of person who doesn’t know too much about NFTs, but want to dip your toe into the market, you might want to consider giving OpenSea a try. Opposingly, if you want to start making a profit from your digital assets, you might do best to sign up for Mintable since it offers many advantageous features for sellers and creators. 

However, the final decision ultimately depends on what you’re looking for in a marketplace. Even if you fit into either audience category, give both a try to see which one fits your NFT needs the best. You might also want to consider some NFT marketplace alternatives to OpenSea and Mintable, such as Rarible or Nifty Gateway. 

Finally, and most importantly, have fun with your NFT journey. Both options offer expansive NFT inventories to browse and start collecting, so you might want to dive in headfirst and figure the rest out later.