Is NFT Bartering the Next Trader Craze After NFT Loans?

In the early months of the year, multiple trading platforms launched lending services for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). On Tuesday of this week, Ginoa rolled out a new NFT bartering platform, adding another way for NFT owners to generate earnings. Can we expect the newest ways of trading digital assets to take off after this year’s lending boom?

2023 has been a year of innovation in the NFT market. Not to mention fierce competition. In February, Blur overtook the previous king of NFT marketplaces, OpenSea, by rolling out a suite of airdrops. 

NFT Lending Exploded in Spring 2023

Unlike OpenSea, whose easy UI appeals to traders of all experience levels, Blur aspires to offer a professional-level trading experience. Providing a suite of features to turn a user’s computer screen into something akin to a Bloomberg terminal for NFTs.

The market has taken note. According to data from Delphi, Blur achieved a total 53% NFT marketplace share within a few months of the launch.

Building on that success, on May 1, it rolled out Blend (or “Blur Lending”), a peer-to-peer perpetual lending protocol for NFTs.

Within ten days, users had already borrowed 51,656 ETH—equivalent to $95 million—against their digital collectibles, according to data from Dune. In doing so, the platform surpassed its competitors and drove NFT loan volume to $67 million in just one week.

On May 26, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, followed with its own NFT lending service, another sign of just how rapidly the trend caught on.

Then, on June 27, Ginoa launched its flagship NFT bartering service, Barterplace. Users can offer one or more NFTs, as well as cryptocurrency, in exchange for another NFT or multiple NFTs. The feature offers greater flexibility to traders, allowing them to enter and exit collections without requiring liquidity.

NFT Bartering Requires Zero Liquidity

Not risking your liquidity is the whole point, Samet Duman, CEO of Ginoa, told BeInCrypto.

“After witnessing even the largest collections lose up to 90% of their value, people have become more cautious in utilizing their liquidity. It is precisely at this point that we began offering them the option of trade without money,” he said. 

Earlier this year, NeoSwap, which closed a $2 million pre-seed round in February, launched a similar Smart Swap service. The AI-powered feature uses on-chain and off-chain data for personalized trade discovery.

Kevin Jin, CTO of Kalder, believes the financialization of NFTs is a positive step for the industry.

“Allowing NFT transactions by trading an equivalent digital collectible, multiple collectibles, and even meeting the difference by adding crypto tokens, makes trading significantly easier for all parties involved. Prices fluctuate, and with collectibles [they] can be very subjective,” he told BeInCrypto.

“So this more individualized transaction framework is a great option for passionate investors and traders,” Jin added.