Window Shopping: A Beginner's Guide to Tezos NFT Marketplaces

Digital art, tokenized assets, digital ownership, and NFTs are a hot topic these days. Perhaps not quite as hot of a topic as they were in the heady days of the 2021 NFT Boom — when millions of dollars were changing hands daily, but a hot topic nonetheless.

As our digital experience transitions further and further toward the Metaverse and Web 3.0-driven paradigm to come, digital assets — be they art, collectibles, or a new piece of branded digital clothing for your digital dog — should be expected to become increasingly important (even indispensable) part of our digital lives.

This important fact hasn’t been lost on the forward-thinking folks here in the Tezos ecosystem. Many in the Tezos space are already moving to establish Tezos as an industry leader in the space and claim a place at the leaders of digital asset table to come. The NFT’s important place in the digital-first gaming, collectibles, and art world of the future is no longer in doubt, and the Tezos ecosystem is hard at work building out the infrastructure necessary to make the most of it.

A key part of that infrastructure is the NFT marketplace. These dynamic digital one-stop-shops help drive the Tezos NFT marketplace forward, providing to tools necessary to buy, sell, collect, store, display, and (in many cases) “mint” Tezos NFTs.

The ongoing growth of NFT marketplaces in the Tezos ecosystem stands as testament to the robust health of the Tezos NFT market, as well as the Tezos ecosystem’s status as a desirable landing place for digital artists from across the globe.

These market places not only serve as important touchpoints for Tezos’ lively community of artists and collectors, but also as crucial entry points for potential new users into the Tezos ecosystem.

With that in mind, I thought it might be a good time to pause and take stock of some of Tezos’ many NFT marketplaces (and their progress) in 2023. Here are a few of my personal favorites listed in no particular order…

Objkt #

Objkt.com is one of the best known and most widely-used NFT marketplaces in the Tezos ecosystem, and, for good reason. Objkt’s ease of use, simple UI, and low barriers to entry make it an appealing option for Tezos NFT novices and experts alike.

With a bevvy of new tweaks and features recently added to its already outstanding platform, the objkt marketplace offers NFTs from across the Tezos gaming, collectibles, and art world and remains a must-visit destination for anyone curious about what the Tezos NFT space has to offer.

The objkt marketplace can be found at objkt.com

Versum #

While Versum may be a relative newcomer to the Tezos NFT marketplace space when compared to objkt, its contribution should not be underestimated. By combining features of NFT platforms and social platforms, Versum is able to provide a UI curated to the unique preferences of each user. This type of Web 3.0-infused NFT marketplace experience isn’t something we’ve seen much of before, and could well hold great promise for the future of NFT marketplaces and users in the future.

The Versum team stated that their goal was to allow users to “engage with NFTs in a meaningful way without the noise that comes from a marketplace” which is on full display here through Versum’s minimalistic and art-first UI approach.

The Versum marketplace can be found at versum.xyz

OneOf #

Where other Tezos NFT marketplaces have focused their efforts on digital art and tokens with Web 3.0 gaming utility, the team at green NFT platform OneOf has chosen to go in a slightly different direction. Partnering with iconic brands, artists, and athletes from across the globe, the OneOf team has been hard at work releasing collectible NFTs and bringing non-crypto natives into the Web 3.0 and Tezos world through share passion points of music, sports, and lifestyle for quite some time now.

In partnering with well-known brands and pop-culture personalities, the team at OneOf has created an appealing entry point into the Tezos and Web 3.0 space for consumers with little to no crypto knowledge at all. NFTs in the OneOf marketplace can be purchased with no more than an email and a credit card, although crypto purchases are also, of course, more than welcome as well.

The OneOf marketplace can be found at oneof.com

akaSwap #

akaSwap is, in many ways, similar to many of the other NFT marketplaces in the Tezos ecosystem — with one notable exception: as an Asia-focused Tezos NFT marketplace, the akaSwap UI can be viewed/interacted with in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Bahasa Indonesia, Korean, and Japanese.

With entities like TZAPAC hard at work building Tezos’ presence in the Asia Pacific region, and this region’s importance to the advancement of global Web 3.0 and metaverse adoption well-established, such efforts to increase global accessibility and inclusivity should not be taken lightly. akaSwap’s marketplace features many emerging artists from the region, offering both artists and collectors a low-barrier entry point into the exciting world of Tezos-based digital assets.

The Akaswap marketplace can be found at akaSwap.com

Teia #

Teia is a digital art NFT marketplace run for artists, by artists. With strong roots in Tezos’ thriving arts community, Teia was originally built as a community-managed, open-source platform for the codebase and old community of Hic et Nunc (HEN). HEN was once an important leader in the Tezos NFT art space, now resigned to the annals of Tezos ecosystem history — but has since evolved into an important hub for digital artists on Tezos in its own right.

Teia’s DAO recently pulled a first of their kind by becoming a registered non-profit LLC (DAO), making it the first community-owned non-profit marketplace on Tezos and the world. Teia’s governance tokens are distributed based on activity, making Teia a truly community-owned Tezos-based NFT marketplace entity.

The Teia marketplace can be found at teia.art

Typed.art #

In the cookie-cutter world of global NFT marketplaces, typed.art truly stands out from the crowd. Featuring purely text-based art, poetry, and storytelling produced by the platform’s many users each and every day, typed.art offers a unique window into the true grassroots promise of the NFT world.

Within minutes, any curious individual can begin creating, minting, listing, buying, collecting, and even selling their own text-based Tezos NFTs on the typed.art platform. Its minimalist UI provides an easy-to-follow entry point into this fascinating world, and is well worth checking out for anyone interested in getting involved with Tezos NFTs.

The typed.art marketplace can be found at (you guessed it) typed.art

fx(hash) #

fx(hash) has carved out a very fascinating and popular niche in the world of Tezos NFTs. The fx(hash) platform focuses exclusively on the emerging genre of generative art, which incorporates autonomous systems — like AI or machine learning - into the digital art production process.

The fx(hash) platform offers artists the opportunity to mint and sell their generative works and collectors the opportunity to view and collect the amazing results of these human-system artistic collaborations. With generative systems becoming startlingly powerful/capable, and generative art grabbing headlines across the globe, the fx(hash) marketplace provides an impressive window into one of the most cutting-edge artistic styles the digital age has produced thus far.

The fx(hash) marketplace can be found at fxhash.xyz

TZCreator #

One of the newest NFT marketplace / minting platform on Tezos, TZCreator allows artists to mint single edition, multiple edition, and open edition artworks. Unlike many other marketplaces, artists minting their work on TZCreator will have full ownership of their own smart contracts.

Launched by Tezosphere, TZCreator offers artists a higher degree of control of their own work. By making artists the minting authority of the NFTs they mint, artists are able to make their own choices about the terms pertaining to their work, like royalties and licensing.

Although quite new to the Tezos NFT space, its easy to see why such freedom and control could appeal greatly to artists and attract them to this fledgling marketplace in droves.

The TZCreator marketplace can be found at tzcreator.art

With a Web 3.0-driven digital future moving closer to our current reality by the day, the place of NFTs in the blockchain-powered reality ahead is coming into much sharper focus.

With NFT marketplaces playing such a crucial role in how NFTs are minted, marketed, sold, and distributed, these lively platforms will play an increasingly important part in the digital drama ahead.

With the veritable cornucopia of NFT marketplace options establishing themselves right here in the Tezos ecosystem, Tezos’ quest to claim place at the Web 3.0 and metaverse table appears to be progressing nicely, and it behooves everyone in the Tezos ecosystem to show these fantastic Tezos NFT marketplaces a little bit of love. Go forth, play, create, and collect, because you might be stumbling on the Picasso of tomorrow, today.