DeFi News

In a blog post made earlier today, OpenSea announced the launch of Seaport, “a brand new web3 marketplace protocol for safely and efficiently buying and selling NFTs.” \ \  \ \ While information on the protocol is scarce, it is clear that it was built in an effort to better optimize how NFTs are traded. \ \ As of today, most NFT marketplaces only allow for listings where one party agrees to supply an NFT and the other agrees to supply a payment token. However, Seaport takes a different approach. \ \ Each order within Seaport contains an arbitrary number of items that an “offerer” is willing to give (the "offer"), along with an arbitrary number of items that must be received along with their respective receivers (the "consideration"). \ \  \ \ Contrary to traditional NFT marketplaces, offers in Seaport can be made with ETH / ERC20 / ERC721 or ERC1155 items. This means that a user who wants to buy a Bored Ape worth 100 ETH can do so by making an offer with say, 40 ETH and 3 other NFTs worth 60 ETH, for a grand total of 100 ETH. \ \ Additionally, offerers have the option to delegate both a “zone” and a “conduit” for any listing. \ \ A zone is an account that performs additional validation prior to fulfillment, and that can cancel the listing on behalf of the offerer. \ \ A conduit is a contract where offerers set token approvals. The owner of the conduit can add and remove “channels” for the conduit, and registered channels can instruct the conduit on how to transfer tokens. \ \ Furthermore, SeaPort allows users to specify which criteria — e.g. certain traits on NFT artwork or pieces part of a collection — they want when making offers, as well as the ability to partially fulfill orders. \ \ In a partial fill order, an offerer can create a partially fillable order to supply up to 10 ETH for up to 10 ERC721 items from a given collection; then, any fullfiller can fill a portion of that order until it has been fully filled. \ \ This is a clear sign of OpenSea feeling the heat from competition, and likely plays a role in their latest integration with gem xyz, a bulk NFT aggregator a few months ago.