LooksRare, a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace, looking to take the throne from OpenSea, has made sales of over $100 million worth of NFTs a day after the launch of its marketplace.
Data from Dune Analytics dashboard reveals that in the past 24 hours, the OpenSea competitor’s marketplace has hosted $105 million in trading volume, generating 613 ETH (nearly $2 million) in platform fees.
On the day in question, OpenSea, which often accounts for 90% of the sector’s total trading volume, saw $169 million in trading volume and is narrowly keeping pace with LooksRare, also with $105 million in sales.
What you should know
One of the major reasons LooksRare is gaining traction is because, according to its internal documentation, it is rewarding buyers and sellers with 2,866,500 LOOKS tokens (over $10 million) per day based on volumes traded and will continue to do so for the next 30 days before progressively cutting emissions.
So far, traders are betting LooksRare has at least temporary dominate the trading volumes in the coming days. Over 75,000 Ethereum addresses have claimed a LOOKS airdrop worth an average of $3,500, and the token is on the precipice of breaking the top 200 cryptocurrencies by market cap, up 16% on the day to currently trade $3.70 as of the time of this writing.
For months, NFT traders have clamoured for OpenSea to release a token and decentralize portions of its operations. The incumbent’s policies around enforcing IP as well as delisting hacked or exploited NFTs has made it a target of critics who say it’s a rent-seeking middleman in a decentralized ecosystem. OpenSea was recently valued at $13.3 billion.
While conditions appear right for the platform’s launch, LooksRare’s early success isn’t entirely attributable to natural demand. As multiple observers have pointed out, a large portion of LooksRare’s volume is likely being generated from wash trading, which refers to the practice of wallets typically controlled by the same party “selling” assets back and forth.
