Tezos stands as a decentralized blockchain that employs smart contracts to enable secure and transparent transactions. It distinguishes itself through its self-amending nature, enabling effortless upgrades and enhancements without resorting to hard forks.
Tezos' primary objective is to establish a sturdy foundation for constructing decentralized applications (dApps) and digital assets. Through its emphasis on governance, security, and scalability, Tezos has garnered significant attention from both developers, investors, and digital art fans (including artists and collectors).
The Tezos NFT landscape is growing at a voracious rate. New platforms are launching every month, and the established ones keep improving. With all this spectrum of possibilities, it might be hard to get started as an NFT artist or collector, so I decided to introduce each of them briefly. This article isn’t a comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons but a summary to help you choose where to begin your journey.
Tezos is a proof of stake blockchain, which has become the home for NFT art.
To better understand the traffic, I included the monthly users and volume stats for each of them (January 22nd - February 22nd, 2022. Courtesy of DappRadar).
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Monthly users: 25.47k.
Monthly Volume: 7.4M.
objkt.com is the leading marketplace in terms of volume and active users. It started as a platform to run auctions out of hic et nunc NFTs and evolved quickly to support more features, including minting.
It is characterized for showcasing all the NFTs on Tezos, even those minted in other platforms. Although it takes some time to include new marketplaces, all the NFTs from hic et nunc (and their mirrors), FxHash, Rarible, and Kalamint can be seen, listed, and purchased through objkt.com.
Profile pictures/avatars projects were not as popular in the Tezos community until the last part of 2021. It changed, in part, because of objkt.com, including custom smart contracts, like the Tezzards, GoGo, Skeles by Jjjjjohn, and Ziggurats by Mike Shinoda.
Thanks to their seller’s and buyer’s leaderboards, this marketplace is a great place to monitor floor prices, volume, and hot collections across the Tezos ecosystem.
Monthly users: 22.02k.
Monthly Volume: $1.06M.
teia.art, hicetnunc.art, hicetnunc.xyz
Hic et nunc is probably the most popular and iconic platform in the Tezos ecosystem. At one point, this marketplace had the same amount of volume as Ethereum OpenSea.
It sparked the fire on the Tezos blockchain by allowing artists to mint their pieces at meager gas prices. These attracted many collectors, and Tezos became a fantastic place for experimentation and art-driven NFTs.
Hic et nunc faced many problems, from scalability issues to a security hack that brought the marketplace down for almost a month. Finally, a big saga ended when the founder shut down the site (hicetnunc.xyz). I documented what happened here.
Nevertheless, thanks to decentralization, multiple mirrors have been turned on, the NFTs are safe, and the smart contracts are up and running. A community-driven initiative is leading the development of Teia.
This platform is excellent for indie artists and enthusiastic collectors who want to experiment with the real Tezos art roots.
Monthly users: 8.45k.
Monthly Volume: $2.29M.
FxHash focuses on coded generative art. They’ve created a mechanism where artists can submit their project's code and, using the blockchain transactions, generate a unique NFT.
It is still in Beta, but a roadmap has been released recently with clear steps for the official launch (including a token, a DAO, and curated spaces).
In contrast to other coded generative art platforms like Art Blocks, FxHash is entirely open so that anyone can mint a project.
I’ve written several pieces about FxHash NFTs. From investing to some of my favorite collections (1, 2).
If you are a generative artist, collector, or you want to get your feet wet in the coded art space, this is the right place for you.
Monthly users: 7.72k.
Monthly Volume: $500k.
Versum is a new platform (less than two months old) and has taken Tezos NFTs by storm. They are the first platform to deliver their token, called MATERIA. If you have done transactions on the Tezos blockchain, you should be able to claim some tokens.
They went a different route compared to objkt.com. Their vision is to create a more organic NFT discovery, not influenced by leaderboards or rankings.
One of my favorite innovations from this site is their Boards. Anyone can create a board and include NFTs to facilitate the discovery by other collectors. They work similarly to Pinterest boards and provide an excellent mechanism for NFT art curation.
Like FxHash, they have delivered at a fast rate. In addition, they have many ideas and plans to continue the development of this marketplace, among those the inclusion of generative art.
Monthly users: N/A.
Monthly Volume: N/A.
This marketplace focuses on music and sports/lifestyle.
They have struck very powerful partnerships with the Grammys Awards and with Warner Music.
To be honest, I haven’t collected anything on One Of, but I have to admit they have tremendous potential. I believe music NFTs could soon become a big thing, and they seem to agree.
The action might be slow at the moment, but keep an eye on this platform as it could turn it around very quickly.
Monthly users: 2.07k.
Monthly Volume: $64k.
One of the biggest marketplace on the Ethereum ecosystem, Rarible expanded and introduced Tezos support a couple of months ago.
Although many expected Rarible to make a huge impact right from the start, it hasn’t become as popular as the other Tezos marketplaces. One reason could be their high fees, which are 5% (x2 compared to objkt.com, for example).
An interesting effect of having a marketplace supporting Ethereum and Tezos in one place is an easy comparison between prices and gas fees for collectors between both chains. Remember Ethereum gas prices range from $20 to $150 per transaction, while less than $1 on Tezos.
Monthly users: 1.19k.
Monthly Volume: $46k.
Kalamint has been around for around one year now. To be honest, I haven’t used their site as much as the other platforms.
One of the main differences compared to other sites is they mint multiple editions differently, allowing each piece to have its own edition number. What does this mean? If there are 20 editions on an NFT, their minting mechanism can differentiate among #1, #2, #3, etc. On other sites, each edition is handled equally. Again, this is only for multi-edition NFTs, not for 1/1s.
I wouldn’t tell you not to use it both as an artist or collector, but I believe the previous platforms have more stable and advanced features. You can see that by looking at their traffic and volume.
Monthly users: N/A.
Monthly Volume: N/A.
Art Forge is the newest platform on the Tezos NFT ecosystem, and they have developed two exciting and unique features already.
The first one is to share part of the earnings from NFT sales with promoters. When you share a referral link to an NFT you like, and someone makes a purchase, you get a percentage of the profit. Everything happens in the blockchain, so it is 100% transparent. I’ve been asking for this kind of functionally for a long time, as it incentivizes curators to share their favorite collections, helping artists and bringing new participants to the Tezos ecosystem.
The second feature is the possibility to mint a custom collection in an unrevealed state (this is only possible on FxHash so far). Minting an unrevealed and waiting for the reveal is quite an experience. Usually, artists would need custom smart contracts to accomplish this.
ArtForge offers both of these features to approved users only at this time.
There is no doubt an immense pool of talented founders and builders found a home in the Tezos blockchain making it very attractive for newcomers. I hope this brief analysis helps you get started on your NFT journey. If you have doubts, please drop a comment or even reach out to those communities directly; they are super responsive and helpful.
I can’t wait to revisit the progress these platforms have made a couple of months down the road.
Until next time,
- Kaloh
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