4 “hidden innovations” of OpenSea that people don’t realize

Hello.

I’m Ikehaya, the founder of the NFT collection CryptoNinja.

Today, I will explain OpenSea’s innovations.

1) It’s an e-commerce site, but you don’t need an ID or password.

Have you noticed this?

OpenSea is, in a sense, an online shopping site where you can buy digital art.

A typical e-commerce site requires an ID and password, right?

This kind of thing. It’s a pain in the ass.

…… Huh?

That’s right.

Have you noticed that OpenSea doesn’t have a …… ID and password!?

Since there is no ID/PASS, there is no concept of “unsubscribing” either.

I’ve been asked, “How do I register as a member of OpenSea?”

That’s right, there is no such thing as registration.

How it works is that OpenSea can be used by simply “linking wallets”.

(Just click “Connect”!)

Once you connect your wallet to OpenSea, you can use the assets in your wallet (purchased funds and held NFTs) in OpenSea.

Sounds simple, right?

This is a very common specification not only for OpenSea, but also for applications built on the blockchain (called Dapps).

Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and Compound have no concept of membership registration.

All you have to do is connect your wallet. It is rare to find a service that has a registration function.

The fact that there is no membership registration function means that OpenSea does not hold any of our personal information.

In other words, there is zero risk of ID and password leaks at OpenSea.

From a business perspective, the fact that there is no need to manage personal information is quite revolutionary.

(2) There is no need to send payment information.

Not only is there no ID/PASS, but you are also not required to enter any payment information.

The scary thing about e-commerce sites is that, depending on the specifications, the payment information may be stored on the server of the operating company.

In fact, there have been many incidents of leaks.

Of course, payment information is not stored on the server. You just connect the wallet.

Since we don’t have member information to begin with, there is no link between personal information and payments.

From a business point of view, “no need to make people enter their credit card information” is a real revolution.

Blockchain payments are going to revolutionize e-commerce sites.

In the future, OpenSea plans to release a feature that allows users to buy NFTs with credit card payments.

Although the specifications have not been disclosed, there is a risk of information leakage and personal information exposure with this payment method, so be careful when using it.

(3) Fees are extremely low, and sales are paid in an instant.

Do you know what OpenSea’s fees are?

It’s a whopping 2.5%.

A typical credit card transaction incurs a fee of 3 to 5%.

The fee for Stripe, which my company uses, is 3.6%.

This is the cost of payment, and in general, there is a “platform fee” that is added on.

In the end, they deduct 10–30% from your sales, you know.

OpenSea, of course, does not require a credit card fee.

They only collect 2.5% of sales. That’s clear accounting!

What’s more, with OpenSea, sales are “paid in real time”.

This is natural since it is P2P (peer-to-peer), but it is a speed that is unheard of in general business practices.

In the case of credit card payments, the delay is basically one month, and in some cases two months. ……

OpenSea is a global marketplace that allows settlement in the “world currency” ETH.

The base currency of OpenSea is ETH.

The site is not localized, and everyone, all over the world, sees the same domain site.

This is not the case with Amazon, for example.

Amazon.co.jp (Japan) and Amazon.com (U.S.) are different sites, and the payment currency is also different. Of course, you can’t use ETH.

(Amazon.co.jp)

I believe that OpenSea is a “real global market” that could not have appeared in any old economy.

There have been some “global ECs” in the past, but they were constrained, especially in terms of payment and currency.

You could only buy in dollars or yen, for example. And the exchange rate is also not favorable.

If everyone uses ETH, it’s fine. Simple.

This is the world of Web 3.0.

So, if you look at OpenSea as an e-commerce site, the following points are innovative.

• No need to register as a member in the first place. In principle, there is no leakage of personal information.
• There is no need to enter payment information. No need to enter payment information, just connect your wallet with a single tap.
• The fees are lower than credit cards, and the payment is made in real time.
• The global currency ETH allows you to buy and sell with people all over the world.

Now, go to …….

Those of you with good intuition know what I’m talking about.

This is actually a new form of the web!

OpenSea is just one of the pioneering and easy-to-understand examples, and this type of service will become more common in the future.

For example, CryptoNinja would like to create a blockchain game someday.

The game will, of course, have the same “just connect your wallet” specifications as OpenSea.

At the moment, DID (decentralized ID) using blockchain technology is also in the works.

To put it another way, it is a technology like …… that can integrate more advanced information (email address, date of birth, name, address, etc.) into a wallet.

By simply connecting the wallet, the information can be used on the connected site, but no information is stored on the site.

This is a very rough explanation, so please DYOR.

If DID becomes widespread, there will be no need for operators to retain personal information.

This is very important from the perspective of “privacy protection,” which has recently become a topic of debate.

However, the fact that “no personal information will be stored by companies” is only a small part of the revolution that Web 3.0 will bring.

Depending on how you look at it, OpenSea may not be Web 3.0, but rather a bridge to Web 3.0, a “Web 2.5” of sorts.

The real Web 3.0 world is not yet like this.

I’ll find another opportunity to write a blog.