How to buy NFTs – The Complete Guide 2023 (easy & fast)

NFTs have been experiencing a boom since 2021. In 2021, there was real hype about NFTs, which has since cooled down again somewhat. But NFTs will have a long-term significance. Just as the Internet has changed many things, NFTs will do the same.

The good news is that anyone can benefit from NFTs. Buying NFTs is not difficult once you understand a few basics. The following article provides important information about buying NFTs.

NFTs offer a good way to diversify investments. NFTs not only represent real value – enabling smart contracts that encode collectibles as digital assets – but are also a step toward true decentralization of digital rights management.

But if you’re just starting out or new to trading digital assets, it can be difficult to figure out where to begin. Finding an easy-to-use platform can be a challenge. That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive guide on how and where to buy Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

How to buy NFTs: The most important at a glance

What is an NFT? NFT stands for “non-fungible token”, which translates as “non-exchangeable store of value”. NFTs are distinctive and immutable digital objects. They represent a kind of “title deed” for digital assets. These digital assets can be digital products, such as pictures, pieces of music, videos, works of art; they can be services, such as tickets; or they can be real products, such as real estate, land, shares in companies, whose shares have been digitized. Detailed information on the topic of “what NFTs are” can be found in the blog post: “What are NFTs? – explained in a simple and understandable way”.

How to buy NFTs? NFT trading is done through NFT marketplaces. NFTs can be bought through different platforms. These are online marketplaces where all types of NFTs are offered and traded. When buying NFTs on these marketplaces, the different platforms offer advantages and disadvantages. In the following article, these platforms will be analyzed and evaluated in more detail.

Buy NFTs on NFT marketplaces

NFT platform differ in terms of operator, offer, payment methods, custody and the fees.

NFT marketplace of crypto exchanges

The easiest and fastest way to buy NFTs is through crypto exchanges. Especially for beginners who have little or no experience with cryptocurrencies, this is the easiest way. The large, globally operating crypto exchanges have expanded their offerings in the NFT area very well in the last 2 years. An account on a crypto exchange is quickly opened and within a short time you can buy your first NFTs there. In the following, two NFT platforms of large crypto exchanges are presented.

Binance NFT Marketplace

Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world and offers a very large selection of NFTs with its NFT platform. Almost all known NFT projects are represented there and there are very many NFTs to buy in the areas of images, graphics, audio, video.

Once an account has been created with Binance, this can be used for both the NFT platform and the crypto exchange. This is a great advantage because it is then possible to buy NFTs and cryptocurrencies through one account.

The navigation and handling of the platform are simple and clear, even as a beginner you can quickly find your way around. The possibility to create your own NFTs almost free of charge and to gain experience with them is attractive and interesting.

The fees are very low at Binance. The commission fee is only 1%, and the transaction costs (gas fee for using the blockchain) are also very low. Binance is currently a very cheap NFT marketplace with this cost model.

Binance also has a very high level of security, as several security measures are applied, such as 2-factor authentication. The user has several options to set the security measures here.

Overall, Binance offers a very good price-performance ratio with its NFT platform to buy NFTs. Especially for beginners, this platform is very interesting, because as a beginner you get crypto exchange and NFT marketplace with very fair trading conditions in one package.

Crypto.com NFT Marketplace

Crypto.com is a large global crypto exchange that has attracted attention through major marketing campaigns (sponsoring World Cup 2022 soccer, Super Bowl, etc.).

For Crypto.com, the focus is on the ease of use and usability of the applications. Both the NFT platform on the PC and the app are very easy to use.

Crypto.com discovered the topic of NFTs very early and was present on the market early. There is a large offer on the platform, almost all known NFT projects are tradable here. Since Crypto.com is very active in the sports sector as a sponsor, there are some exclusive NFTs that you can only buy on this platform.

The fees are low, for the purchase of NFTs there are no fees, for the sale it is 1.99%. Transaction costs in the form of gas costs are not incurred.

Crypto.com offers a very good NFT platform for beginners. Large NFT offer, low fees, many payment methods and the ease of use are big plus points. For purely German-speaking beginners, the platform is unfortunately not usable, since the platform is not yet available in German. It is also not yet possible to create your own NFTs.

Summary NFT platforms on Crypto exchanges.

The NFT platforms on crypto exchanges are the fastest and easiest way for beginners to be able to buy NFTs. The fast account opening, ease of use, many payment options, a wide NFT selection and low trading fees are very interesting.

Therefore, the most sensible way for beginners is to open an account with one of the two major crypto exchanges to buy NFTs and make their first experiences with NFTs. The access to the NFT platforms with over 100,000 NFTs and additionally a large selection of cryptocurrencies is a very good combination to enter the topic and get to know the possibilities.

NFT platforms for crypto wallet owners

A slightly more sophisticated way to be able to buy NFTs runs through platforms that require a crypto wallet. Setting up your own crypto wallet is not really a difficult matter in principle, but it does require some basic knowledge in the field of cryptocurrencies. Therefore, buying and trading NFTs on these platforms is only recommended and useful for advanced users. The prerequisite is to buy cryptocurrencies and set up your own wallet.

The great advantage of these platforms is a very large and diverse range of NFTs and, above all, the secure own custody of the NFTs. With these platforms, the NFTs are always in the possession of the wallet holder and are not held in custody by the crypto exchange. This is called decentralized custody (self-custody). An NFT purchase via crypto exchanges always implies a dependency on the crypto exchange and its rules of the game.

In the following, we will analyze and evaluate in detail two interesting platforms that require the presence of their own wallet.

OpenSea NFT Marketplace

Opensea is the first and world’s largest platform for NFT trading. Opensea is similar in idea to Ebay, anyone can post their NFTs there, either at a fixed price or against bids. The platform is mainly financed by transaction fees. In terms of sales volume of traded NFTs, Opensea was the top dog for a long time with a huge market share. In recent months, a new platform has been giving Opensea serious competition.

The supply of NFTs is huge, comprising more than one million NFTs. Liquidity is very high due to the high trading volume, which is an important criterion for attractive prices.

The operation is simple and clear, and you can quickly find your way around the platform. However, it is a prerequisite that you have your own crypto wallet and can use it. The platform accepts over 100 different cryptocurrencies.

Creating your own NFTs is very easy on Opensea. The platform offers many useful functions for designing your own NFTs.

A small disadvantage of the platform are the sometimes high transaction fees of up to 2.5%.

In summary, there is no way around Opensea for the advanced NFT investor and trader. The variety of offers and the high liquidity are the big advantages of this platform. The decentralized custody via a dedicated wallet is also a clear plus for the advanced user. Therefore, if you have created your own crypto wallet, it makes sense to use this platform.

Blur

Blur only entered the market in 2022 and has been able to gain tremendous importance and market share in a short period of time. The idea of aggregating the offer of numerous other NFT platforms and displaying it on the Blur platform is excellent for buying NFTs. This is because you can very quickly see on which platform the NFT you want is available at the best price and you can buy it directly through Blur. This is a great advantage because you no longer have to sift through numerous platforms to get the NFT you want at the best price.

In terms of usability, Blur is very simple and easy to understand, and you can quickly find your way around. However, a mandatory prerequisite is that you have your own crypto wallet and can handle it.

Trading costs are very low at Blur. Due to the low trading costs at Blur, even competitors have had to lower their conditions.

Creating your own NFTs is not possible on Blur, as it is a platform aggregator. The lack of German language on Blur is a disadvantage for purely German-speaking users. So far, only NFTs based on the Ethereum blockchain are tradable on Blur.

Blur has significantly shaken up the NFT platform market with its new, innovative concept and has caused changes. On the one hand, Blur has gained considerable market share and on the other hand, it has caused a reduction in transaction costs for other platforms. For the advanced user, Blur is a MUST-HAVE, because through the Blur platform, the NFT offer of all connected platforms is available to the buyer and one can buy the NFT at the best price.

Other NFT platforms

In addition to the platforms presented in detail, there are other platforms. Some of these operate in specific niches, e.g. sports, computer games or art. They are smaller in terms of sales volume and liquidity is sometimes limited. Nevertheless, it can be worthwhile for advanced NFT buyers to take a closer look at these platforms, as there can be very special and interesting NFT projects here, which are not available on the major platforms.

Enclosed is a listing of other NFT platforms:

• Nifty Gateway

• Rarible

• WAX

• Atomic Hub

• Foundation

• Draft Kings

• ELUV

• Kalao

• Solsea

• UNXD

For beginners, however, it is recommended to start on the major platforms presented above.

Which NFTs to buy?

This question cannot be answered in a blanket way and always depends on the goal of the buyer. If someone wants to collect works of art or pieces of music, then he has a different goal than someone who wants to buy NFTs to make as much money as possible with them.

Basically, the same questions arise as when buying real objects: Is the object supposed to bring me a concrete benefit, e.g., membership in a community or participation in a rewards program of a certain company? Or am I buying a stock or property because I am convinced of the future performance of the object? It is also possible to combine the two, so that both a benefit and an increase in value are achieved.

What determines the price in NFTs?

The price of NFTs, as with almost all tradable assets, is determined by supply and demand. However, the supply of NFTs is almost always limited, i.e., for example, a maximum of 10,000 NFTs of a series are created and each NFT of this series, with its individual characteristics, exists only once.

The supply is limited and, as a rule, it is not possible to increase the supply either technically or in terms of content. So if there is a limited supply, the price is controlled by demand. If more people want to have a certain NFT, the price will rise. If there is no interest, the price will fall or remain low.

It is imperative to have this mechanism of action in mind if you have an investment target in NFTs. This means that there should be a demand in the future so that the NFT can increase in price!

The topic of NFTs is still very much in its infancy. At the moment, around 400 million people are active in the field of cryptocurrencies, while there are still well under 100 million people in the field of NFTs. With the multitude of use cases that NFTs offer, the number of users will increase to several billion people in the next 10 years, similar to the user numbers of the Internet. This will create a high demand, which will cause price increases of many hundreds of percent for certain NFT projects. One should always keep in mind that the topic of NFTs is only two years old.

High-quality NFTs will meet with enormous demand in the coming years.

Another factor for the price of NFTs is the cryptocurrency in which the NFT is traded. If the price of the cryptocurrency changes, the price of the NFT in euros or dollars also changes.

For example, if the price of an NFT is 0.5 Ethereum (0.5 ETH), and the Ethereum price were $1,000 per Ethereum, then the NFT would cost $500. Now, if the price of Ethereum increases from $1,000 to $2,000, then the price of the NFT has increased from $500 to $1,000, with nothing to do with the demand for the NFT. It is important to understand that NFTs are measured in cryptocurrencies and that cryptocurrencies fluctuate compared to the EURO or the dollar.

Features of interesting NFTs

Publisher

An important feature is the publisher of the NFT. Which community, which company is behind the NFT? Is it a large and solid community with many users?

One example is the online and social media platform Reddit. It launched its first NFT project in November 2022 and released Reddit avatars as NFTs. Reddit has many users, so this could be a good basis for the possible success of this NFT.

Another example: The company Yuga Labs launched one of the most successful NFT projects ever in spring 2021: the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Members of this exclusive club can only be people who own a certain digital collectible, a “Bored Apes” NFT. These NFTs are comic images of apes, of which there are 10,000, each image is equipped with certain unique features.

They were issued for 250 US dollars nowadays they are traded for tens of thousands of dollars each. Membership provides access to an exclusive network of people. Furthermore, the holders of the NFTs regularly receive other new NFTs or cryptocurrencies. The publisher Yuga Labs is permanently focused on bringing a lot of value to the community. Therefore, the publisher of the NFT plays an important role.

Benefit

The second important characteristic is the benefit of the NFT. What is the benefit to the owner? The benefit can be very different: it can be access to an exclusive community, it can be collectibles of digital artworks by sought-after artists, or it can be a digitized object of value in the form of a real estate part. Almost anything is conceivable, anything can be digitized and traded via NFTs. Therefore, every buyer must ask himself the question, what benefit should and can the NFT offer me. The variety of possible benefits is huge, however, it should have some benefit, and if it is a pure collector’s item. But then one should be aware of that.

Properties of the NFT

Each NFT has certain properties. These are certain rights and characteristics associated with the NFT. In the case of digital collectibles, for example, there are very rare copies with certain properties (attributes).

Other NFTs involve specific rights or magnitudes of the underlying assets. For example, one NFT may guarantee 1% in one property, another NFT may guarantee 5% in another property. There are no limits to the design of NFTs here and it is advisable to look at what features and rights are associated with each NFT.

Blockchain

The blockchain on which an NFT is created can be significant. If an NFT is created on a very rare blockchain, the question is how many people can access it and how in demand it is in the first place. It therefore makes sense to use NFTs on large established blockchains, as this gives them a much wider distribution. Well-known large blockchains for NFTs are Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB, Solana or Fantom.

Conclusions for the purchase of NFTs

It is advisable to take a closer look at the NFT projects when buying an NFT. The publisher/community of the NFT plays a key role, as discussed above. But also the previous price development offers important clues. Here at the example of the Bored Apes you can see how the price has developed so far.

Via price portals like Coingecko or CoinMarketCap you can get a lot of price information about large NFT projects and get an accurate picture of the price development. The price is an important criterion, and it is usually not advisable to buy if a price in a project has already increased very much.

One’s own taste is definitely also an important factor. Do I like the project, the work of art, the film, the piece of music, the real estate behind the NFT? For some people this is a very important question and they can only identify with a project that they like. For other people this is completely beside the point and they see it as a pure investment object, without any personal preferences.

Overall, it is advisable to proceed similarly with the purchase of NFTs as with all other purchases. A familiarization with the respective project should always take place, because only then a certain understanding is available. Furthermore, it is always sensible to invest in several different projects and not to focus on just one project. The principles of successful investing in terms of diversification and a balanced portfolio mix apply equally in the field of NFTs!

Summary

Buying an NFT is not difficult. For beginners, the easiest and fastest way is to open an account on a major international crypto exchange, such as Binance or Crypto.com. After depositing money on the crypto exchanges, you can choose from a large number of NFTs.

Advanced crypto users can use an NFT marketplace that is connected to the user’s wallet. This has the great advantage that the user stores his NFTs himself and only he has access to them. In addition, the offer on platforms is usually much larger than on the platforms of crypto exchanges. Well-known examples are Opensea and Blur.

The more difficult question is which NFTs to buy. This question is as difficult to answer as the question of which stocks to buy. Just as with stocks, there are big known projects with high popularity in NFTs or there are very small niche projects with little demand so far. It is important to take a closer look at the NFT project by analyzing the publisher and popularity, evaluating the price development and assessing the benefits.

Buying several different NFTs is advisable, as no one can predict how each project will develop in the future. The investment principle of diversification is also very advisable for NFTs.

Last but not least, the only advice left is to deal with the topic of NFTs in detail. NFTs will be of great importance in the future, because in the next 10 years many products, services and valuables will be digitized with the help of NFTs!

Frequently asked questions

Where can you buy NFTs?

NFTs can be bought on online platforms. Major crypto exchanges, such as Binance, offer marketplaces for NFTs. In addition, you can buy NFTs from many other platforms with your own crypto wallet. The most popular platform at the moment is Opensea.io.

How to buy NFTs?

The price of NFTs is usually quoted in cryptocurrencies. Often prices are quoted in the cryptocurrency Ethereum, for example, 0.5 ETH. For the purchase, you have to pay the amount of cryptocurrencies and receive the NFT in exchange.

What does an NFT cost?

The cost of NFTs varies widely. Prices range from a few cents to several million US dollars. The price depends on many different factors, such as value, popularity, rarity, associated rights, etc. NFTs are mostly paid for in cryptocurrencies.

What does non fungible token mean?

“Non fungible tokens” (abbreviation: NFT) translates as “non-exchangeable tokens”. A euro is exchangeable for another euro, making it fungible. A fingerprint is unique and therefore cannot be exchanged for another fingerprint, i.e. it is non-fungible.

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