"Curve to save the country"? Explain in detail how Opensea's new Deals function can solve NFT liquidity problems

Original text: "Detailed Explanation of Opensea's New Deals Function: "Barter" in the NFT World"

Author: how the husband

Today, Opensea released an NFT combination exchange function Deals, which allows users to use a series of NFT combinations to exchange with other users' NFT combinations.

According to Odaily Planet Daily, in fact, in May this year, when Opensea launched the Seaport protocol, it has already introduced this point-to-point "NFT combination transaction mode", but the Opensea front-end has not opened this function.

After entering the bear market, NFT has been criticized for lack of liquidity, and NFT in the hands of collectors (especially non-blue-chip and non-utility NFT) is of no use except for self-appreciation (or secret chagrin). As a result, a number of platforms have emerged to solve the NFT liquidity problem, or use lending and leasing models to release liquidity, or further use financial derivatives to "FTize" it. But back to the fundamentals, non-standard NFTs are still single in terms of transaction mode.

As the former overlord of the NFT trading platform, Opensea is now second only to Blur. When it launched the Seaport protocol, it once ignited the hope of "solving the NFT liquidity problem" for everyone. Today, the related function Deals is finally online. Odaily Planet Daily uses experience, introduction, and analysis to verify its working principle and effectiveness. By the way, it also shares some thoughts on NFT market competition as follows.

Deals Function Introduction

The Deals function comes from the Seaport protocol, which is a decentralized smart contract protocol for creating and fulfilling orders for ERC721 and ERC1155 tokens. Each order contains the combination of tokens provided by the supplier and the combination of tokens required by the receiver.

The Deals function allows buyers to apply to sellers to purchase a certain number of NFTs in an equivalent manner by packaging a certain number of NFTs and Tokens on the same chain.

For example: User A wants to exchange two Azuki worth 5 ETH for BoredApe worth 30 ETH in the hands of user B. User A needs to search for user B's address through the Deals interface, select BoredApe in user B's wallet to generate a purchase order, then select two Azukis of his own, fill up the price difference with WETH at the current market value, and initiate a transaction application to user B. After user B agrees, the transaction is completed.

Through examples, you should find that there is a problem. This peer-to-peer packaging transaction model is more suitable for NFT swaps of the same value, such as Doodles and Azuki in the bull market stage. Of course, Opensea also thought of this, and introduced WETH to make up the price difference, so as to increase the flexibility of "non-swap transactions" and further increase the possibility of NFT flow.

(Attachment: Opensea’s official Deals introduction video.)

The current strong enemy, Opensea seeks change

Opensea launched the new protocol Seaport in May this year, and today launched the Deals function. Compared with the slow pace in the past, the update rhythm has been significantly accelerated. The reason behind it is not difficult to understand:

The above picture shows the weekly trading volume of major NFT trading platforms in the Dune panel in the past two years. It can be seen that from the end of last year to the present, **Opensea has been eroded by Blur from the former overlord to now, urging Opensea to innovate and regain market share. **

In addition to the token economy, Blur's high position is naturally inseparable from the product model and supporting operations. Blur focuses on the model of bulk sale + bulk purchase, plus the newly launched NFT lending platform Blend to form an NFT transaction matrix and improve the liquidity of NFT.

In contrast, Opensea's previous functions were slightly single, and it could only be purchased through Token, which is not conducive to large-scale shopping. Leading to a substantial loss of current market share. Can the Deals launched by Opensea reverse the situation and regain its previous position?

The Deals function is a trading mode that is different from other platforms. It adopts an interactive combination trading mode, and solves the NFT liquidity problem by reducing the transaction process through the barter mode. What are the advantages of this model?

Taking Blur as an example, its transaction mode is batch sale and batch purchase. In essence, it is still the traditional transaction steps, one hand pays and one hand delivers goods. It only improves convenience from the user's perspective, but does not improve the liquidity of NFT. As for Opensea’s Deals, buyers package NFT and Token to exchange NFT in the hands of sellers, saving buyers the process of selling their own NFTs.

The Deals model also has corresponding drawbacks - inefficiency caused by untimely interaction. After the buyer applies, there is no further step to facilitate the transaction, and he can only wait for the seller's acceptance and rejection. This process also increases the time cost.

Both Blur's batch mode and Deals mode have different application scenarios. Blur is more suitable for the cycle of high NFT liquidity in the bull market, and Blur is relatively more friendly to use. Deals are more suitable for the bear market stage, and increase the possibility of transactions in the stage of poor market liquidity.

(By the way, I would like to make a suggestion to Opensea. If the chat window plug-in for buyers and sellers can be added, it may increase the possibility of successful Deals transactions.)

The NFT project is cool, and the NFT platform is warming up

With many NFTs returning to dust, platforms that focus on NFT transactions are having a hard time. Compared with 2021, our overall transaction volume this year has dropped significantly. The disadvantages of insufficient liquidity of NFT are becoming more and more obvious.

However, ERC6551, Blur's Blund lending and Opensea's Deals function have appeared one after another, giving everyone a glimmer of hope.

The three provide new vitality to NFT in different dimensions:

• ERC6551, as a new smart contract protocol, can enhance the new combined gameplay of NFT, improve the operability and utility of NFT from the bottom layer (NFT is a wallet, NFT is an identity), and is applicable to multiple fields. This reminds me of the possibility of combining NFT and FT as a whole for sale, such as the airdrop of new projects.
• There are many NFT lending agreements. Blend directly integrates with Blur, which currently has the largest market share, which can stimulate the release of NFT liquidity and enhance market vitality.
• Opensea's Deals function, which changes the existing NFT transaction process and omits transaction steps, will be a powerful tool to stimulate the improvement of NFT liquidity, which remains to be seen further.

It is gratifying that practitioners are still insisting on innovation and not lying flat. And these small iterations in the bear market may all be the big killer in the future bull market.