Want to know whether OpenSea is actually safe to use?
You want to get into NFTs, but you’re worried about being scammed?
So is OpenSea safe?
We totally understand your hesitation and it’s always a good idea to do your own research before you engage in a new activity.
In this guide, we’ll explain to you whether OpenSea is safe or not and also point you towards some of the inherent risks of dealing with decentralized Apps (aka dApps).
Anyway, let’s get right into the juicy details.
Key Points (tl;dr)
- Yes, OpenSea is safe to use.
- OpenSea is not only legit, it is by far the largest NFT marketplace in the world right now in terms of users and volume.
- Any sort of business that involves making money will always attract scammers and hackers who try to exploit vulnerabilities. This is part of the cost of doing business in this very new and unregulated market.
- There are many alternatives to OpenSea, notably LooksRare or Rarible. However, they are just as exposed to the same risks as OpenSea.
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The Truth: Is OpenSea Safe?
www.tokenizedhq.com
Here’s the answer. Great article by @ChrisHeidorn right here: https://tokenizedhq.com/is-opensea-safe/
Is OpenSea Safe?
For the vast majority of people, OpenSea is an absolutely safe place to trade. Every dApp comes with the potential risk of vulnerabilities and fraudulent activity. That cannot be entirely avoided. However, as long you do proper research and trade diligently, you are unlikely to run into problems.
OpenSea is currently the largest NFT marketplace in the world.
It ranks amongst the top NFT websites in the world and controls more than 90% of the trading volume.
Does that answer the question: Is OpenSea Safe? Not really.
While OpenSea mostly looks like every other website, it is actually a decentralized app (dApp) that is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
As with all software, dApps can also have vulnerabilities.
If scammers find a vulnerability, they can and will try to exploit it.
And in its relatively short history, OpenSea has already had 2 of those, which is why so many victims are asking for an OpenSea refund.
While this applies to every website on the internet, the difference is that the blockchain is censorship-resistant.
That means that once something has happened on the blockchain, it cannot be reversed without the agreement of both parties that were involved.
So if a scammer somehow manages to get a hold of one of your NFTs, no one will be able to retrieve it for you by force.
That is why the idea behind “self-custody” is so important.
Self-custody requires you to take the necessary measures to limit your exposure to risks because if something goes wrong, no one will be able to help you.
Despite recent reports of many people “losing” their valuable Bored Apes due to old active listings, most of these cases could have been prevented if the owners had taken better care of their NFTs.
Many of them tried to save gas by using the OpenSea transfer NFT feature, but this is known to be an unsafe way to delist your NFTs.
You can learn how to delist on OpenSea properly in our very own guide here on Tokenized.
So I’m not really sure I’d answer the question “Is OpenSea safe?” with a simple “No”.
OpenSea is certainly not without fault in this case, however, the owners must admit that they also messed up themselves.
NFTs are a nascent industry within the crypto space and this usually also comes with slightly more risk.
So, is OpenSea safe to use?
Yes, for the most part, OpenSea is safe to use and the majority of users will never experience any theft.
If you still prefer to use an alternative to OpenSea, then we highly recommend looking at the X2Y2 or LooksRare NFT marketplaces.
Just make sure you’ve thought about purging all of your personal data from OpenSea.
You can do so by checking out our article on how to delete OpenSea accounts.
Is OpenSea Legit?
Yes, OpenSea is a legitimate business. It is currently the dominant NFT marketplace and has the financial backing of many renowned investors, such as Adreessen Horrowitz, Mark Cuban, Tobi Lütke, Ashton Kutcher and many more.
OpenSea is by far the largest NFT marketplace in the world, not only by users and also by trading volume.
The company was founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah and is headquartered in New York City.
After an initial pre-seed round led by Y Combinator in 2018, OpenSea has subsequently managed to get vast amounts of additional funding from various renowned investors, including a16z.
I’m pretty sure Marc Andreessen has a very strong opinion on the question “Is OpenSea safe?”.
OpenSea also recently acquired Ethereum wallet developer Dharma Labs in January 2022.
So even though there technically isn’t any OpenSea wallet on the market right now, this could easily change once Dharma is integrated into the company.
Despite all its success, OpenSea has also been at the center of a number of controversies.
In September 2021 its Head of Product was sacked for confirmed allegations of insider trading.
And in January 2022 OpenSea reimbursed multiples users a total of $1.8 million due to a software vulnerability that allowed scammers to buy extremely valuable NFTs at old and highly discounted, list prices.
Are There OpenSea Alternatives?
The most popular alternatives to OpenSea are LooksRare and Rarible. Especially LooksRare has attracted a lot of attention due to its LOOKS rewards token. More curated options for NFT art marketplaces are SuperRare and Foundation.
There are many alternatives to OpenSea.
However, the NFT market is very illiquid and listing NFTs on multiple platforms can cost a lot of gas fees.
That is why most of the supply and demand tend to concentrate on one NFT platform.
OpenSea has been the big winner in this battle.
Nevertheless, there are a number of good alternatives to OpenSea.
Some of these alternatives are particularly attractive because their fees are much cheaper than OpenSea’s fees.
The most popular alternatives are:
For a more curated NFT art experience, we recommend:
Conclusion
Despite all of the negative press that OpenSea has gotten in the past 6 months, it’s hard to refute that they must be doing something right.
The platform processes transactions in millions of dollars and for the most part, without any issues.
Is OpenSea safe? Sure, it’s no less safe than any of the other platforms.
As with every new unregulated market, scammers and fraudsters are likely going to try to exploit the lack of knowledge of users or technical vulnerabilities.
And as cynical as it may sound, this is part of the cost of doing business when you’re playing a risky game in the wild west.
That is why it is all the more crucial that you stay vigilant and always do your own research.
Here at Tokenized, we want to help you learn as much as possible about the coming NFT revolution. We help you navigate this fascinating new world of non-fungible tokens and show you how you can integrate tokenization into your own business.
