OpenSea announces brand new NFT marketplace protocol Seaport

The world’s most popular NFT marketplace OpenSea has unveiled a new Web3 protocol that allows anyone to set up new and decentralized NFT marketplaces. As per some members of the community, the protocol could become the “Uniswap moment” of NFTs.

In its blog post, OpenSea said that the first iteration of the new protocol, titled Seaport, has already been created by OpenSea itself, but stressed that it is open for anyone to build on. The protocol reportedly allows for a number of new features, including new ways of paying for NFTs, criteria for transactions, and new techniques for eliminating redundant transfers to reduce gas fees.

OpenSea also says that every Seaport listing will consist of the same basic structure, including an improved EIP-712 signature payload, which outlines what can be spent and what will be received back.

Traders will also be allowed to specify the criteria they want in any given NFT or the part of the collection the individual prefers when making offers.

In addition, Seaport supports tipping. This means another consideration item could be added by the fulfiller when fulfilling an item. This will be valid as long as the tip is not more than the original offer.

“As adoption grows and developers create new evolving use-cases, we are all responsible for keeping each other safe,” OpenSea said, clarifying that it would not be the one controlling Seaport but rather an independent open-source protocol for several developers to build upon.

According to the announcement, the process will be automated and governed by the decentralized smart contract.

“OpenSea does not control or operate the Seaport protocol – we will be just one, among many, building on top of this shared protocol,” said the NFT marketplace. “As adoption grows and developers create new evolving use-cases, we are all responsible for keeping each other safe.”

In the past, OpenSea has been criticized by users for operating in a centralized way. Now, members of the NFT community appear to be happy, with one popular member, atareh.eth, saying that he believes this could be NFTs’ “Uniswap moment,” referring to how the decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI) kickstarted the ‘decentralized finance (DeFi) summer’ of 2020.

“Perhaps there’s another NFT summer on the horizon soon enough…,” the user wrote.

According to the developers, this is just the beginning of the protocol as the initial plan was to expose the use cases and optimization expected by creators and collectors from a modern Web3 marketplace. It was further disclosed that OpenSea will not be the sole controller of the protocol, but will be among many developers keeping each other safe. Also, there is a Github project, an ongoing community engagement, and participation. People are, therefore, advised to review and ask questions to improve security and its evolution.

Also, a vulnerability audit of the protocol has been performed by the Trail of Bits, and a security review has also been performed by OpenZeppelin. Moreover, OpenSea is also starting a two-week audit contest with a $1 million prize pool as part of its plans.

The NFT space has contracted in terms of sales this month as crypto markets continue to decline. While Morgan Stanley last week warned investors in digital assets like NFTs about the risks of a further fall.

According to the Nonfungible tracker, US dollar sales figures are down from over $60 million per day in early May to around $25 million as of May 20. The number of sales was more than 100,000 per day at the beginning of the month, but that had slumped to around 23,000 by the end of last week.

Meantime, Cryptoslam reports that the Otherdeed Metaverse land NFT collection has been the most popular over the past seven days, with around $27 million in secondary sales.