The Near Protocol is NFT-friendly, as NEAR transactions are fast and affordable. The protocol is faster than Ethereum, and it allows transactions to be processed for a negligible fee. These factors make NEAR ideal for managing NFTs and building NFT projects.
This article will tell you about some of the NEAR NFT projects. But first, let us brief you on non-fungible tokens.
What Are the NEAR NFT?
NFTs are unique digital assets with identifying information recorded on a smart contract. This information is what makes an NFT unique. Fungible assets like Bitcoin are exchangeable, meaning you can send or receive Bitcoin without any hitches. Fungible assets are also divisible, allowing you to send smaller amounts.
Non-fungible assets are not divisible. For example, you can’t send a part of a painting or a ticket to anyone. NFTs are digital certificates of ownership for digital assets. An NFT is a smart contract for securing a digital asset. Once written, it is published into a token (ERC-721) on the blockchain. Anything can be turned into an NFT, the most popular being videos, GIFs, or JPEGs.
The NFT Marketplaces That Work on NEAR
An NFT marketplace is a gateway to participating in purchasing and selling digital assets, from art to music to entire virtual worlds. Here are some of NEAR's most popular and well-rated NFT marketplaces where you can buy and sell those digital assets:
Every project has specific features and different aims.
Paras Marketplace
Paras sticks to a curatorial approach to its artists’ output. This selection process ensures consistent quality and elevates creators. On NEAR, Paras is bringing their curated NFT experience to artists struggling to mint artworks on other blockchains. Paras is a user-easy marketplace and a dream place for artists. If you are represented there, the art is of high quality and value to the community. The volume of some collections is impressive. This chart shows the top five most invested-in collections on Paras.
The top five collections by owners include NPunks, NEARNauts, and AstroPups.
Mintbase
Some NEAR NFT marketplaces are not only for buying and selling NFTs. They also create programs for developers and help build a more decentralized ecosystem on NEAR. For example, Mintbase launched the Grants Program focused on funding software development and research efforts related to Mintbase.
Mintbase provides minters with various creative allocation and redemption mechanisms for their customers. A company or person can create their markets. To date, customers have been using the platform mainly to mint tickets, art tokens, and newsletter subscriptions.
The attendees of NEARCON, the biggest NEAR conference, could buy an NFT entrance ticket minted by Mintbase. NFTs can be easily implemented in our everyday lives. Users can mint different digital assets as NFTs. These assets could range from event tickets to crypto art and everything in between.
Minters can create a smart contract and limit the transferability of the tokens minted, helping prevent fraud or an illegal transfer of unique items. Mintbase is focused on creating an NFT creation experience that is unique, which is why it supports different digital assets. This is unlike competing platforms that focus on one specific NFT category.
In addition, the NEAR NFT community grows daily, as this market is attractive. Many people are involved in the NFT market—they create, buy, hold, or stake NFTs and deploy projects.
The NEAR Foundation That Supports NFTs
NFTs on NEAR are a significant opportunity in which NEAR has a unique tech advantage, as NEAR NFTs are programmable applications. NEAR has a chance to be the first mover in authentic, long-term, sustainable, and unique NFT use cases.
The NearNauts team came to NEAR with a vision, received funding from the NEAR Foundation Grants team, and launched what is now one of the top NFT projects on NEAR. They started as a PFP NFT project, utilizing the grant funds to develop their website, smart contract, and marketing. Then, they expanded to build a no-code NFT launchpad and a KYC platform. Their marketplace is on the way, featuring a revenue-sharing model for holders.
Appolo42 is another project supported by the NEAR Foundation. The Apollo42 team is an excellent example of a NEAR Foundation grant recipient that has realized their vision. Apollo42 is an NFT services ecosystem that started by building and integrating NFT ranking tools. From there, they went on to develop their own NFT marketplace with elements of AR built into it. Apollo42 has made remarkable developments along the way and continues building and updating its platform.
The NEAR Foundation supports many new NFT projects and announces new grants frequently.
Prospects of Implementing NEAR NFTs
NFTs are infinitely programmable, so we don’t even know yet all the cool ways they can be used. It’s possible to use NFTs as membership cards to give people access to special events. Artwork becomes now more than just a thing to display or a cash flow generator. It has become a special designation of status that the artist or anyone else can use to give special privileges to the holder.
What else might be possible?
NEAR NFT Staking
NFT staking is a new way of making money from NFTs by locking them in smart contracts. Holders or collectors can lock their NFTs in staking platforms and earn rewards and other privileges. This way, you can earn passive income while still having the ownership of your NFTs.
You stake your NFTs on a platform or protocol in exchange for receiving rewards in native or partner assets and getting other benefits existing at the time. Instead of simply buying NFTs and letting them sit in your account, the idea is that you can stake and earn interest from them while keeping the ownership of the artworks.
The staking rewards NFT holders can receive for deploying their NFTs depend on the platform and the kind of NFT. Most NFT staking platforms offer periodic rewards, often paid daily or weekly. These rewards are generally paid out in the platform's utility token, but exceptions exist. Regardless of the token used to pay staking rewards, you can trade your staking-reward tokens and possibly convert them into other cryptocurrencies or fiat money.
Wrapping Up
In the physical world, artists make revenue from selling their original works of art, and may even have the right to produce more. When these things are resold, the artists never know about that and never earn any income from them. Because NFTs are digital objects that live on the NEAR blockchain, the artists can be notified and paid a commission every time they are bought and sold. Every time, in every location.
NFTs—rapidly developing on various blockchains—play a significant role in the crypto ecosystem, and its participants can no longer ignore them.
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