The virtual world has been booming in the past two years despite the not-so-encouraging global situation in the real world. Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs as they are fondly called, are amassing huge amounts in cryptocurrency for creators and developers alike. While sellers earned a lot of money, one has to think about NFT marketplace platforms that aided in selling those digital tokens. One cannot simply disregard a marketplace platform’s contribution to the NFT boom, and many players could claim credit for their services. These marketplace portals served as a bridge between cryptocurrency holders and creators who ventured into the NFT world, as it would have otherwise been impossible to garner such huge amounts for artworks.
Since there are multiple prominent blockchains, running an NFT marketplace only on a single blockchain would not suffice as the NFT community is widespread across blockchain networks. Therefore, an NFT marketplace business owner needs to plan on extending their portal to work across multiple blockchains as sellers and buyers are spread across the blockchain space. This blog will give you some valuable insight into NFT marketplaces and how cross-chain development can be a worthwhile expense for your business.
Before Everything, What’s an NFT Marketplace?
An NFT marketplace is a blockchain-based platform that allows the trading of a wide range of non-fungible token assets. These NFT assets may be anything ranging from physical/digital art, music, video clips, avatars, in-game items, digital trading cards, accessories, wearables, and even real-world items. These marketplace portals typically accept transactions in cryptocurrencies, although some allow fiat gateways to increase their business base. Major general NFT marketplaces include OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare, Solsea. There are also some exclusive marketplaces, such as the in-game marketplaces in Decentraland, Axie Infinity, and Sandbox. While some of these marketplaces work only on a solitary blockchain, a few work on two blockchains. No single marketplace has worked on all the well-known blockchains to date.
Why Go Cross-chain for Your New NFT Marketplace?
- Enabling your marketplace platform to work across multiple blockchains ensures interoperability is achieved, and hence, you can widen your user base irrespective of the network they use.
- Cross-chain functionality enhances the tamper-proof nature of the NFT assets you list on the portal, ensuring trading credibility and instilling trust in your users.
- Working on multiple blockchains makes liquidity an easy process, as there will be someone active on any of the blockchain networks at any given time.
- Although running your platform on cross-chain makes you think security concerns might be a threat, they are not. This is due to the marketplace having a log for every trade carried out on the NFT marketplace portal.
- Due to the advantages of working across blockchains, your NFT marketplace can work seamlessly on any device without any performance issues.
Features of a Cross-chain NFT Marketplace
- Storefront – The storefront of a cross-chain NFT marketplace looks familiar to any e-commerce webpage with products listed under various categories such as Trending, Featured, Coming Soon, Best-selling, and more. Details of individual NFT items can also be seen, and sometimes they even include additional information on the blockchain and the protocols so that users can verify originality.
- Search Bar – Every marketplace portal should have a search bar that enables users to easily find the item they wish to buy. They must also include various filtering options to make navigation around the platform easier.
- Crypto Wallet – A marketplace dealing with NFTs needs a wallet for transactions from both ends. Some portals allow the integration of existing third-party crypto wallets such as Metamask or Coinbase. Others have wallets integrated into the portal in which users should load cryptocurrency to participate in trading.
- Notifications – For a cross-chain NFT marketplace portal to emerge victoriously, it is important to let users know the latest offers, the upcoming drops, bids on their NFTs, and more through email and push notifications.
- Customer Support – A support portal is what any user would need when encountering an issue in the marketplace. A dedicated customer care service working 24/7 should be one of the core features of a cross-chain NFT marketplace.
Step-by-step Process for Developing a Cross-chain NFT Marketplace
- Plan Extensively – Before developing your cross-chain NFT marketplace, it is important to have everything planned. Initial planning involves the niche relating to your new business. You would have to decide the kind of NFTs you would be selling. You also need to decide on the blockchains on which your portal would work.
- The Designing Part – It is important to plan on your design more than anything else, particularly when working across blockchains. You can design your user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) using in-house experts or hire a company that has experience designing such components. An appealing design and a seamless experience ensure greater user satisfaction and popularity.
- The Developing Part – For a cross-chain NFT marketplace, development plays a key role. Front-end development plays a huge part in making your cross-chain NFT marketplace platform work seamlessly. Back-end development also plays a prominent role as great work in the back-end ensures security and robustness. It would be easier to work with a development company with the necessary experience, as hiring in-house developers with such experience incurs high costs.
- Testing and Launching – Testing is critical for software development. In a cross-chain NFT marketplace, bugs, errors, and other defects can affect the smooth functioning of the platform. These should be tested for, and trouble-shooting must be performed before deployment. Support might be needed if new bugs are found, or issues arise after the initial release.
- Release Portal Updates – As the user base expands and more problems arise, frequent upgrades are necessary to keep the business secure and relevant.
A Final Note
Blockchain technology is exciting as it has newer use cases each day, and cross-chain NFT marketplaces are one of those cases which can be beneficial. There has not been any NFT marketplace platform that works across multiple blockchain networks to date. As time goes by, other blockchains will have an increased user base, resulting in businesses going for cross-chain functionality on their marketplace portals. Although such development is still in infancy, a company with experience in blockchains like Blockchain App Factory can realize a cross-chain NFT marketplace at economical costs.