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If you’re an artist in the world of NFTs, knowing where to showcase your masterpiece collection is as crucial as the art itself. It’s like throwing the most epic party – you gotta know where to set up the disco ball!
In this guide, we’re going to have a closer look at NFT launchpads. These magical stages are not just about listing your NFTs, they’re like your personal art gala, offering a buffet of services to make your NFTs a star!
We’ll be breaking down the main services offered by these launchpads – think of it as your personal tour of an NFT theme park. On top of that, we’ll also be revealing the crème de la crème of NFT launchpads in 2023.
What is an NFT Launchpad?
An NFT (Non-Fungible Token) launchpad is like a magical stage that makes the birth, sale, and fame of NFTs possible. These platforms are like a Swiss Army knife for artists, creators, and businesses to cook up their own NFTs and throw them into the wild.
Here’s short breakdown of what an NFT launchpad does:
Minting: Minting an NFT is like baking a unique digital cookie. NFT launchpads are like easy-bake ovens where creators can toss in their digital goodies (like art, music, or virtual real estate), sprinkle some metadata (like the creator’s name, description of the asset, etc.), and voila! Freshly baked NFTs.
Listing and Sale: Once the NFTs are out of the oven, they gotta find a home. NFT launchpads are like digital farmers’ markets where these NFTs can be put up for sale. They often offer various sale formats, like auctions, fixed-price sales, or even fancy stuff like Dutch auctions or fractional sales.
Promotion: Getting your NFT noticed is like finding Waldo in a crowd. Many NFT launchpads have large communities of NFT fanatics, and listing an NFT on these platforms can be like putting up a giant neon sign. Some even offer extra promotional bells and whistles.
Secondary Sales and Royalties: After the first sale, an NFT can change hands faster than a hot potato. NFT launchpads often host these hot potato games, and let the original creator earn a slice of the pie from these secondary sales.
Community Building: Many NFT launchpads also offer tools for creators to gather their tribe, like forums, chat rooms, or social media integrations.
Examples of NFT launchpads include platforms like OpenSea, Rarible, Mintable, and many others. Each platform has its own special sauce, so creators often pick the one that tickles their fancy.
NFT launchpad vs. NFT marketplace. What’s the difference?
An NFT launchpad and an NFT marketplace are like apples and oranges in the NFT fruit salad. Here’s a fun rundown of their main differences:
Purpose: An NFT launchpad is like a digital nursery for creators to grow (mint) and launch their NFTs. It provides the tools and infrastructure necessary for the birth and first sale of NFTs. On the flip side, an NFT marketplace is like a bustling bazaar where users can buy, sell, and trade NFTs. It’s more focused on the hustle and bustle of the secondary market, although many bazaars also host initial sales.
Services: NFT launchpads often offer extra goodies to help creators successfully launch their NFTs, like promotional tools, community building features, and sometimes even advisory services. NFT marketplaces, on the other hand, are more focused on providing a smooth sailing experience for buyers and sellers. They offer features like search and filter options, price history, seller ratings, and more.
User Base: NFT launchpads are primarily used by creators looking to launch their NFTs, while NFT marketplaces are like a melting pot of users, including collectors, investors, and traders, in addition to creators.
However, it’s important to note that the line between NFT launchpads and NFT marketplaces is often as blurry as a Monet painting. Many platforms serve both functions, providing tools for creators to mint and launch their NFTs, while also hosting a marketplace for buying and selling NFTs. Examples of such platforms include OpenSea, Rarible, and Mintable. These platforms can be considered both NFT launchpads and NFT marketplaces.
Best NFT Launchpads in 2023
- Magic Eden
Magic Eden, the big kahuna of the Solana NFT marketplace, recently pulled a rabbit out of its hat with its new NFT launchpad. This platform lets Solana and Ethereum-based projects dish out tokens to their fanbase. Being part of the larger NFT ecosystem, Magic Eden’s launchpad is like a golden ticket for projects to make some moolah. It offers community exposure that’s off the charts, cross-chain minting tech, access to platform listings, chances for long-term bromances, and secondary trading features. With all these perks, Magic Eden is your magic carpet ride to launching new NFT project tokens.
- OKX
OKX’s NFT launchpad, with its fingers in the NFT and DeFi pies, is another versatile platform. It’s like a launchpad for the “cool kids club,” featuring hand-picked projects with creators, artists, builders, and celebs. Supporting a whopping eleven different blockchains, it’s a heavyweight contender on the list.
This launchpad is like a carnival for projects, letting them raise some serious dough through fun-filled activities like flash sales, raffles, auctions, and events like mint, subscription, and the exclusive allowlist. It’s like a money-making fiesta! The launchpad’s volume, currently strutting its stuff at over a cool US$50 million, is expected to skyrocket in 2023 as more folks get bitten by the crypto bug. So, buckle up, because OKX is on a one-way trip to the moon!
- NFTb
Imagine NFTb Launchpad as a treasure hunter, always on the prowl for the next shiny thing in the realm of art, video games, trading cards, and other digital goodies. Not just a stage for projects to mingle with their fans, they’ve got their own investment squad, NFTb Labs, that teams up with and funds the NFT superstars. NFTb projects have been raking in the dough, with six-figure sums already in the bag. So, strutting your stuff with NFTb could have you dancing all the way to the bank.
- NFTLaunch
NFTLaunch, with its buddies BSCPad and TRONPAD, has built a reputation and taken a tougher stance with its launchpad. Their incubator program takes care of everything from legal stuff, tokenomics, token audit, marketing, to industry networking. While the entry bar is set high, this approach ensures that the projects are top-notch, standing head and shoulders above the competition. NFTLaunch is already making waves with its exciting lineup of projects.
- GuardianLink
GuardianLink’s NFT Launchpad platform is like a magic wand for creators, artists, businesses, and celebs worldwide, letting them launch NFTs without typing a single line of code. They use a fancy-schmancy validity method to vouch for the NFT project’s legitimacy. Plus, high-end brands and artists can use Guardianlink’s templates and smart contracts to publish, mint, preview, and launch no-code curated NFTs. They’ve also got a proprietary anti-copycat tech that’s always on the lookout for copycats and duplicates that could rain on the original creators’ parade. Guardian Link’s launchpad offers newbie creators a smooth ride, where they can use the platform’s ready-made templates. And investors on the platform can bid or buy using any wallet they fancy; no wallet discrimination here!
To sum up we should say that choosing to launch your NFTs through a launchpad rather than a marketplace offers several distinct advantages. Launchpads provide a more curated and supportive environment, often offering additional services such as promotional tools, community building features, and sometimes even advisory services. They are designed to help creators successfully launch their NFTs, ensuring they are not just listed, but also noticed and appreciated by the right audience.
Furthermore, launchpads often have a more rigorous selection process, ensuring that only high-quality projects are presented to their communities. This can help to build trust and credibility, both for the platform and for the creators who launch their NFTs through it.
In contrast, while marketplaces offer a platform for buying and selling NFTs, they may not provide the same level of support and exposure, particularly for new and emerging creators.
In essence, choosing an NFT launchpad over a marketplace can be likened to opting for a guided tour rather than a self-guided exploration. Both can lead to exciting discoveries, but the guided tour provides additional support, insights, and direction that can enhance the overall experience.
As the NFT space continues to grow and evolve, we hope this guide will serve as a valuable resource in helping creators make informed decisions about where to launch their NFTs. The future of NFTs is bright, and these launchpads are leading the way.
Featured photo by Aleksander Kagan was taken from Unsplash
