LooksRare Vs. OpenSea (Comparison): The Bullish Case For $Looks Token?

• OpenSea Vs. LooksRare: What future holds?
• Is Looks token worth investing?

Which one is better, and which one should you be using?

I will try to share my observations and research in this comparison post.

Will also look at $LOOKS token from the investment perspective.

2021 was the year of NFT, and it seems like we are just getting started. Not a lot of users know that OpenSea which is probably the #1 NFT marketplace right now, was launched in 2017. It was in 2021 when the NFT market got viral, and OpenSea turned out to be a winner because of its easy-to-use interface, the constant addition of new features, and integration with multiple blockchains made it a go-to platform for launching and buying/selling NFT’s.

But as we have seen with Binance Vs. FTX, there is always a need for an alternative, and this is where LooksRare comes into play. It picked all the shortcomings of OpenSea and also airdropped the $Looks token to users who have used OpenSea. The $Looks token worked as a lead magnet, and a massive number of users claimed their AirDrop. I also did a detailed video on how to claim $Looks token AirDrop. If you have used OpenSea before the AirDrop, you can still claim $Looks token AirDrop. Watch the below video to learn how to do that:

LooksRare Vs OpenSea:

Looks token and community incentive:

$Looks token is the most striking difference between OpenSea and LooksRare. $Looks is the native community token of LooksRare platform which was first airdropped to OpenSea users, and now it is being used to incentivize users to buy/sell NFT’s and also to the liquidity provider and stakers of $Looks token.

As the words are spreading fast, more and more users are migrating to LooksRare for buying/selling NFT’s, as they are being rewarded in $Looks token for their effort. This profit sharing is making this new platform lucrative.

According to their official help doc:

All collections now generate trading rewards. No minimum volume required – you earn LOOKS every time your buy or sell an NFT on LooksRare, from any collection! (Excludes private sales! )

So trading rewards are being distributed in WETH (Wrapped Ethereum) and $Looks token. I could earn over 0.5 ETH by staking some limited amount of $Looks token.

As the volume of LooksRare is increasing, the early adopter and staker of $Looks token will get maximum advantage. LOOKS token stakers earn 100% of the trading fees on LooksRare.

The price action of $Looks token is wild, and if it was not for recent crash, we would have been seeing more upper price action.

The $Looks is also listed on some of the top exchanges due to high demand and the fair distribution. At the time of writing this LooksRare Vs. OpenSea comparison, you can purchase $Looks token on the following top crypto exchanges:

• Uniswap
• FTX
• ByBit
• Huobi Global

Looks tokenomics:

Looks tokenomics page gives a detailed overview of how $Looks token will be emitted, and how the distribution is done. The below screenshot gives a glimpse of Looks tokenomics:

Considering the fact that OpenSea is valued at $13 billion, and there was a huge need for a community-centric NFT platform, LooksRare seems well-positioned to climb the ladder and claim that spot.

The current fully diluted market cap of $looks token is $4.3 Billion (@ Price of $4.32), and looking at the growth of the entire NFT ecosystem and current OpenSea valuation, I feel it could do an easy 2-3x from here. Provided, they continue building and working closely with the community. Not only that, as an investor, you should stake your $Looks token on their platform here, to take advantage of $Looks staking rewards and platform fees rewards, which could be a lucrative passive income source.

In its mere <60 days of existence, it is listening to the community demand and constantly adding new features.

Also, as the platform is sharing fees with the platform and community participants, it seems to do all the right things that we expect from any Web3.0 centric platform.

Platform fees:

Another striking difference between OpenSea and LooksRare is the platform fees.

The $Looks reward and lower platform fees are another reason users are floaking to LooksRare. The entire 2% of rewards is distributed to the $Looks token stakers.

Interface:

From the platform interface perspective, OpenSea is still a clear winner. It took years of re-engineering and constant development to have the interface that it has. In comparison, LooksRare is a newly launched platform, in the 2nd week of January 2022, and the interface is clean, usable but not as great as OpenSea. However, in my limited experience of using LooksRare to buy/sell NFT, it was not bad at all. Though, I feel OpenSea offers more features and LooksRare has to make some effort to catch up.

Why OpenSea over LooksRare:

Even though I made a strong recommendation of the LooksRare platform above, right now it would take months, if not years, for LooksRare to get closer to what OpenSea offers.

I could attribute the growth of OpenSea to organic growth. The LooksRare is using the incentive model to attract NFT users, which seems to work at the moment, but only if they maintain the momentum. It could be #2 or even #1 NFT marketplace in the future.

Features like support for more blockchain (Polygon), and lack of minting are some of the roadblocks for LooksRare, but for now, OpenSea is leading the pack.

There are certain collection which is doing really well on LooksRare, and if you are an NFT trader or investor, you should not miss out on scouting LooksRare to buy/sell NFT.

Conclusion: LooksRare Vs OpenSea

As an industry participant, I’m happy to discover LooksRare, as the community needed an alternative to OpenSea. Monopoly is not good in any industry, and competition like LooksRare would also push OpenSea to build faster.

From the investor’s point of view, the price tag of $4.5 for $Looks token is looking lucrative. As I mentioned earlier, consider staking the $Looks token to maximize your return on the investment. You can get $Looks token on the top exchanges such as FTX or ByBit. From here, you can withdraw the $Looks token to your Metamask wallet and stake it on the LooksRare rewards page.