Where To Buy NFTs: A Complete Guide to NFT Marketplaces

With the growing popularity and mainstream adoption of non-fungible tokens, also comes the emergence of many new NFT marketplaces and NFT-related tools. Of course, there are more established NFT marketplaces like Opensea and Rarible, but new, more specialized marketplaces are showing up every month. This guide will go over all of the most popular marketplaces for collecting NFTs and digital assets.

To interact with any of these marketplaces, you'll need to set up a crypto wallet and load it with cryptocurrency. If you need help setting up your Web3 wallet, or want to learn how to find the right NFT projects early, make sure to check out all of our Web3 guides!

First off, let's talk about the different types of NFT marketplaces and how to choose the right one for your collecting needs. Here is a quick breakdown of marketplace categories and some of the industry leaders in each.

These are like the shopping malls or flea markets of NFT marketplaces, offering a wide array of almost every type of NFT from many different sources. Some examples are Opensea and LookRare for the Ethereum blockchain, Magic Eden for Solana NFTs, and Objkt for Tezos NFTs.

These marketplaces usually allow listing from all other decentralized marketplaces as well, so they become a one-stop shop for all your NFT needs. Many collectors find a site like Opensea and never see a need to go anywhere else. But as a savvy collector, you'll find a use for all the various marketplaces.

These marketplaces typically focus on a specific category of NFTs like 1:1 digital art, photography NFTs, or another specialized niche. They could exist purely because of their curation process, like SuperRare—a highly curated art-focused site that requires a challenging application process for artists to get listed. Other curated NFT marketplaces and sites include Foundation, Quantum Art, Known Origin, and Art Blocks.

These marketplaces will focus on one type of digital collectible like sports memorabilia, trading cards, comics, or videos. Some popular NFT collectibles marketplaces are NBA Top Shot and Sorare.

These marketplaces focus on NFT games, game worlds, and game economies—usually specific to their own particular game. Axie Infinity and Decentraland are two of the more popular NFT gaming marketplaces. Gamestop also just released its own NFT marketplace.

These tools let you see listings across most major decentralized marketplaces. Aggregators allow NFT traders and collectors to buy multiple NFTs from various marketplaces in one transaction—a sweep. The two major NFT marketplace aggregators are Genie and Gem. Both have recently been acquired—Genie by Uniswap and Gem by OpenSea.

When choosing which marketplace to use, relevancy, reliability, safety, blockchain-specificity, and which type of NFT you want to collect should all be part of your decision-making process. It's also important to consider the limitations in place for selling NFTs if you might want to sell part of your collection in the future. This is where centralized vs. decentralized will come into play. And if you want to brush up on NFT security once you make your purchase, we’ve got you covered.

OpenSea is pretty much synonymous with the term NFT marketplace. If you have spent even a day in the world of NFTs, you've likely heard of OpenSea. It's the largest NFT Marketplace by volume, user count, and digital collectibles listed. The user experience is very straightforward, making it easy to mint, buy, sell, and transfer NFTs. In addition, OpenSea just added Solana to the list of blockchains it supports, alongside Ethereum, Polygon, and Klatyn. OpenSea offers pretty much every type of NFT: art, collectibles, domain names, music, photography, sports collectibles, trading cards, utility-based NFTs, virtual land, and anything else that exists.

Category: General

Blockchain: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Klatyn

Best For: Everyone, including new users

Marketplace Commission Fee: 2.5%

Much like OpenSea, Rarible is a general NFT marketplace where you can buy and sell most types of digital assets. Rarible is a "community-centric" marketplace that puts a lot of emphasis on creating tools for creators and communities. The platform also has its own Rarible tokens(RAR), that you can use instead of ETH or other cryptocurrencies. Rarible charges a 1% fee to both buyers and sellers — one of the lower fees as far as NFT marketplaces go. Rarible also offers multi-chain support and can host NFTs built on Ethereum, Flow, Polygon, Tezos, and Solana.

Category: General

Blockchain: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Tezos, Flow

Best For: Everyone, including new users and creators

Marketplace Commission Fee: 2%

LooksRare is a newer Ethereum-based NFT marketplace focused on community and trader-friendly features—which are constantly being added. One of the key features that differentiates LooksRare from OpenSea is the trading rewards given to buyers and sellers during transactions(LOOKS). These rewards can be staked and traded, giving users additional value for transacting on the site. As a bonus, LoksRare fees are lower than OpenSea. Another thing to know is that all transactions are executed in Wrapped Ethereum(WETH), so you will need to swap ETH to WETH before buying or selling. This conversion can be done easily on the LooksRare website.

Category: General

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Everyone, but catered more towards experienced NFT traders

Marketplace Commission Fee: 2%

X2Y2 is a decentralized NFT marketplace that aims to reward users—similar to LooksRare. X2Y2 offers features like bulk buying and selling, rarity tools, collection and trait offers, combined WETH/ETH trades, and more. Fees are set at 2%, with all proceeds going towards the X2Y2 staking pool.

Category: General

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Everyone, but catered more towards experienced NFT traders and DeFi users

Marketplace Commission Fee: 2%

Magic Eden is the OpenSea of Solana—well, at least before OpenSea started supporting Solana. Even so, Magic Eden remains the most popular Solana NFT marketplace based on trading volume. Magic Eden is very user-friendly, making it easy to buy, sell, and even mint Solana NFTs. Because of its user-focused features like Launchpad, market insights, and a new gaming development fund, Magic Eden has quickly become the favorite among Solana NFT traders.

Blockchain: Solana

Best For: Everyone, including new users and creators

Marketplace Commission Fee: 2%

Objkt is the largest NFT marketplace on the Tezos blockchain. It has many of the same features as the Ethereum marketplaces, including the ability to easily mint a Tezos NFT in minutes. In addition to Objkt, there are several other popular Tezos NFT marketplaces like Versum, fx(hash)—the Tezos generative art marketplace—and the now defunct Hic et Nunc.

Blockchain: Tezos(XTZ)

Best For: Everyone, including new users and creators

Marketplace Commission Fee: 2.5%

These NFT marketplaces and sites are aimed more towards a curated digital art experience, ranging across different types of NFTs and varied levels of curation—as in the selection process and difficulty of getting listed.

SuperRare is a curated digital art marketplace highlighting some of the best and most popular artists in the NFT space. SuperRare is different from many other NFT marketplaces in how artists are selected. Artists must undergo a challenging application process where the SuperRare team evaluates their portfolios. Selected artists can only list original, 1:1 (one-of-a-kind) creations. This process contrasts with most other marketplaces that will let you list however many editions of an NFT you would like.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Serious collectors

Marketplace Commission Fee: 15%

Foundation started as a by-invitation-only NFT marketplace that would showcase digital artists invited to the platform by the community and other artists. Now, the site is much more accessible to anyone wishing to mint an NFT and create a collection, but the underlying art-focused themes remain. Most NFTs on Foundation are listed as 24-hour auctions that begin once a minimum-reserve bid has been placed on a piece.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: 1:1 art collectors and artists

Marketplace Commission Fee: 5%

Nifty Gateway is a curated, Ethereum-base NFT marketplace now owned by Gemini. It differs from many other NFT marketplaces in several big ways—the most significant being that it's not fully decentralized, meaning NFTs are stored on the platform, not the blockchain. This could inhibit collectors from being able to list their digital assets on other marketplaces. Another unique feature Nifty Gateway offers is the ability to buy NFTs with fiat currency via credit cards.

Nifty Gateway is also known for promoting and collaborating with prominent celebrities and artists like Deadmau5, Grimes, Beeple, Pop Wonder, and Lil Yachty

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Everyone, 1:1 art collectors, and artists

Marketplace Commission Fee: 5% + $0.30

Recently acquired by eBay, KnownOrigin was one of the first Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces. It differs from some of the general marketplaces like OpenSea in that KnownOrigin focuses predominantly on digital art and photography, as opposed to NFT games, PFPs, and metaverse land.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Digital art collectors and artists

Marketplace Commission Fee: 2.5%

Quantum Art started as a highly curated photography NFT marketplace. Since then, it has broadened its curation scope to include other types of digital artists beyond photographers. Quantum Art uses a community-led curation process where the Quantum collectors choose which NFT collections will drop on the site.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Digital art collectors, photography NFT collectors, and artists

Art Blocks is the OG of Ethereum-based generative art platforms. Art Blocks select artists to share their work via one of the three curation categories—Art Block Curated, Art Blocks Factory, or Art Blocks Playground. The artists will upload their algorithms to the site, and NFT outputs will be generated live as they are minted. Some Art Blocks collections, like Fidenza by Tyler Hobbs and Ringers by Dmitri Cherniak, have amassed huge followings and fetch high prices.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Generative art collectors

Launched by DapperLabs, NBA Top Shot is credited with being one of the first big NFT collections and many peoples' entry into NFTs and Web3. NBA Top Shot lets basketball fans collect and share their favorite moments from their favorite players and teams. The marketplace also allows collectors to trade and display curated collections. One important thing to note about NBA Top Shot, is that it's not a decentralized marketplace—NBA Top Shot NFTs can only be traded centrally on the platform.

Blockchain: Flow

Best For: Sports collectors

Sorare is part fantasy soccer league, part NFT marketplace. Sorare operates on the Ethereum blockchain, allowing users to manage their fantasy soccer teams by buying and collecting player card NFTs. The collection is decentralized, so NFTs can be purchased on other marketplaces like OpenSea. Sorare is definitely one of the more successful sports-related NFT projects.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Best For: Sports collectors

The Axie Marketplace allows players to buy, sell, and swap their Axie Infinity characters, items, and land plots. The game has been hugely successful, creating an entire game economy based on Axie Shards(the Axie Infinity token). Who doesn't love sending adorable little creatures into battle? Axie Infinity has become, along with Crypto Kitties, one of the prototypes for successful NFT gaming.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Much like the Axie Infinity, CryptoKitties has its own marketplace where collectors and players can buy, sell, and exchange CryptoKitties to use in KittyVerse.

Blockchain: Ethereum

"The first-ever virtual world owned by its users." The Decentraland marketplace is fully inclusive to the game, allowing players to buy land, estates, apparel, names, and other items. And, of course, the marketplace enables Decentraland players to sell and swap as well. Transactions are done in ETH, Polygon(MATIC), and Decentraland's token, MANA.

Blockchain: Ethereum, Polygon

The Sandbox is another immersive NFT-based world-building game. Players buy land, characters, items, and much more in The Sandbox NFT marketplace. Land and items are bought with ETH and Sandbox token—SAND.

Blockchain: Ethereum

The video game company, GameStop, has created a new NFT marketplace for distributing game-related NFTs. The marketplace operates on the Ethereum blockchain, using Loopring as a layer-2 solution to help minimize transaction costs. The GameStop NFT marketplace is non-custodial and charges a 2.25% marketplace transaction fee.

Blockchain: Ethereum

These tools allow collectors to buy multiple NFTs from a variety of marketplaces in a single transaction, saving time and sometimes gas. They are also an excellent tool for seeing available tokens across all decentralized marketplaces. When someone uses one of these tools to buy multiple NFTs at once, it's referred to as a "Sweep."

Recently acquired by Uniswap, Genie allows collectors to find and buy multiple NFTs in a single transaction. You can also filter by traits and by marketplace when doing a batch buy.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Recently acquired by OpenSea, Gem has pretty much all the same functionality as Genie, allowing collectors to find and buy multiple NFTs in a single transaction.

Blockchain: Ethereum

Larva Labs/CryptoPunks - The proprietary marketplace for buying and selling CryptoPunks. If you want to buy or sell a CryptoPunk, it must be done on this marketplace.

Coinbase NFT Marketplace - A general marketplace from Coinbase.

Formfunction - The 1:1 NFT marketplace for Solana.

Mintable - Backed by Mark Cuban, Mintable is a general NFT marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain.

Zora - Decentralized auction house for NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.

Scarce.City - Rare Pepes.

Paintswap - The largest NFT marketplace on the Fantom blockchain. The marketplace also offers various DeFi products.

So there you have it, a pretty robust, almost exhaustive list of NFT marketplaces. So if you are looking for something special, or just want to browse, check these marketplaces out and find something nice for your digital gallery!