How to Create an NFT Marketplace? – The Ultimate NFT Guide

NFT is becoming one of the most popular assets, buzzwords and concepts worldwide and on the internet. What appeals to people about NFT is that it is ‘non-fungible’ in nature, which means there’s only one of each unique NFT available for purchase. It is a digital asset with a unique identification code and metadata.

NFT has set its foot in the market and is no longer the new kid on the block. With widespread popularity in music, art, entertainment, films and even games, NFT is slowly strengthening its reign in all markets. Market Decipher conducted a study where the NFT market size in 2020 was estimated at $232 million, which rose to an astounding $22 Billion by 2022. In the same research, they categorized the popularity of NFTs by their niches, and here is how it looks:

Sports, Arts and Movie Avatar NFT markets are soaring the highest with close competition by music and gamification NFT markets, but with the passing years, the possibility of Metaverse NFT soaring is highly likely.

You might know someone who would be a fan of collecting limited edition sneakers or purchasing a unique item that probably is one of its kind. NFT is just like that. However, it’s a digital collectable or digital asset.

Now if each NFT is so unique and appealing, do we need treasure maps or solve various mysteries to acquire it?

Luckily that’s not the case! You can find a different kinds of NFTs on various NFT marketplaces. And that’s why you’re here, right? You want in on this newly emerging market by building an NFT marketplace. But you must be wondering, how to create an NFT marketplace. What do you need to keep in mind during NFT marketplace development? Without wasting any time, let’s dive right into it!

Traits of a Top NFT Marketplace

Before getting into the development process and the technical aspects of NFT development, we need to first understand the traits and characteristics that a best NFT marketplace should possess. Here are some in our consideration:

Challenges you might face when developing the NFT marketplace

You need to understand the complexity of the project you’re about to undertake. Creating an NFT marketplace is developing a secure and responsive trading platform where users can buy and sell NFTs. Here are some of the challenges you are bound to face when developing your NFT Marketplace:

Steep Learning Curve and Constant Updates

NFT is an evolving market, and with time and research, it is going to keep changing rapidly. Naturally, this results in a steeper learning curve and the need to constantly be on your toes when developing and maintaining NFT marketplaces. This is why it is ideal to outsource your NFT development services to an experienced NFT marketplace development company that can keep up with the latest updates.

Establishing Trust among Buyers

Remember the initial hesitation we all had when e-commerce was taking off? To trust a site with your private and banking details and trust a virtual space to deliver your goods against the money you pre-paid them. This is why most ecommerce stores came up with COD (cash-on-delivery) option to make customers more comfortable trusting these sites. The trust factor hesitation is also seen in NFTs since there is a lot of plagiarism and proliferation of collectables and artworks in the present NFT market.

Hence you must develop your decentralized NFT Marketplace on trustable and impenetrable technologies by selecting the suitable blockchain to assure your site remains transparent, secure and reliable.

Legal Complications

NFT Marketplace was built with the idea that it will function without any government interference. However, many countries like India, Japan, the EU, and the UK to aren’t entirely on-board with the no-government intervention nature of NFT. Hence different countries can set different regulations on NFTs which could also lead to possible restrictions and bans on your NFT Marketplace if it doesn’t abide by them. So, managing all rules and regulations and making your NFC marketplace truly global can be challenging.

Inefficient Smart Contract and NFT Maintenance

Smart contracts help assign ownership of an NFT to a user and also transfer or reassign the ownership to another user if the said NFT is transferred. It can be considered a sales agreement for NFT. However, developing secure and robust intelligent contracts requires great technical skills, and poorly handled smart contracts open your NFT Marketplace to hackers and exploiters. Hence you need to hire professional NFT development agencies to create a secure NFT marketplace.

How to create an NFT Marketplace?

Now that we understand the basics of NFT and also some challenges you might face in your NFT development process, let’s start developing your NFT Marketplace without any further ado.

Ask the right questions

It is essential to ask the right questions to find the right solution. The same is the case when creating NFT Marketplace. Here are a few questions you should ask to ensure you create the best NFT Marketplace for your customers:

What niche is your NFT Marketplace going to cater to?

First, you need to understand what niche you want to target. The design and development process of any NFT marketplace differs significantly according to the targeted niche. Here are some of the most popular NFT marketplace niches:

Which Blockchain Protocols are you going to use for your NFT Marketplace?

What NFT Marketplace Monetization Model are you going to use?

Choosing the right NFT marketplace business model is also very important from a business point of view. However, it can be highly tricky too. Luckily, we have the ultimate NFT Marketplace Business Model guide that you can refer to.

How is your project different from existing NFT marketplaces?

What is your USP? How is your NFT Marketplace better than existing marketplaces in your niche? What benefit do you bring to your customers? You need to keep all such points in mind if you want to strive in the market against competitors.

What features do you want in your NFT Marketplace?

The features you want to include in your NFT Marketplace will impact the cost and scale of your NFT Marketplace. Hence, you should clarify what features you want to integrate with your NFT Marketplace. Here are some basic features you should include:

Should you hire in-house talents or outsource to NFT Marketplace Development Company?

Lastly, you should ask yourself if hiring an in-house NFT developer team makes more sense for your business or if outsourcing it to a top NFT marketplace development company seems more practical. Generally, you will need to access highly skilled developer(s) and not an individual, so the cost of acquiring an in-house team could go extremely high. For most cases, outsourcing NFT marketplace development to a reliable and merit-proven NFT development agency is a more viable option.

Also, Read – NFT Marketplace Development Cost in 2024

Decide on the ideal NFT Marketplace Tech Stack

Selecting your ideal NFT marketplace is the next important stage in your NFT marketplace development process. You need to understand the technical and business benefits & limitations of top NFT marketplace tech stacks to see which one is ideal for your requirements. If your marketplace requirements are very specific, you should also be able to request your NFT service provider to build a custom tech stack that caters to your NFT marketplace needs.

Here are some of the ideal choices to build NFT Marketplace Tech Stack from:

Generally, most NFT marketplaces today are based on Ethereum, making it the most convenient and probably ideal choice for developing NFT marketplaces; however, you should consult your NFT development service provider before moving forward.

Open Sea NFT Marketplace Tech Stack Case Study Reference

One of the largest NFT Marketplaces is Open Sea, a decentralized marketplace allowing users to sell and purchase NFTs. It gained popularity for providing the needed infrastructure to trade and mint NFTs. It runs most of its operations on blockchain, making it highly secure. Here is the Open Sea tech-stack breakdown to give you a better idea of how to build an NFT Marketplace Tech-Stack:

Focus on NFT Marketplace Designing

Most capable NFT marketplaces often lose out on customers only because they don’t pay much attention to their UI/UX. Having user-friendly navigation with appealing design and engagement-driven tactics is essential for increasing conversions. When we say focus on design, do not prioritize design over functionality. Your NFT marketplace design should make accessing your site easier and not worsen the customer experience.

Work on the Frontend of your NFT Marketplace

Now that you have your NFT marketplace design and have decided on the preferred frontend development framework, you can start painting your idea into reality. Popular choices include Angular, React and Vue. Popular NFT marketplaces like NBA Top Shot and OpenSea use React for their front end.

Move to the backend with Smart Contracts

Once you have managed your NFT marketplace frontend, you should shift your focus to the backend of your NFT Marketplace. NFT Marketplace backend works differently than your web app backends. It is a function-driven development process where all the functions are created using a different kinds of smart contracts. NFT marketplaces are decentralized, allowing users to carry out the auctions and transactions hassle-free by using Smart Contracts.

You should develop Smart Contracts after adequately understanding your Marketplace’s crucial aspects and requirements. Smart Contracts also help store all metadata of all NFTs that exist.

Connect the Frontend and Backend by integrating Interface Implementation

Once we are done selecting the right tech stack, working on the frontend and backend, next, we need to link them both for building an NFT marketplace that is fully functional. One primary function that the developers need to focus on is making the user interface smoothly operable with all the functions created in the backend using smart contracts. Successful implementation and connection between frontend and backend make the NFT market an offering/product.

Integrate NFT Minting Attributes

NFT minting is the process of converting any digital asset/files to crypto-based collectables that get stored on the blockchain. These files are now stored in a distributed decentralized ledger and cannot be modified, edited or deleted. Minting is an important aspect of the NFT marketplace.

Popular NFT Minting Methods

As a creator, you can set up any of the three top NFT minting methods on your NFT Marketplace:

Set up Storage, Database and IPFS

Storage and database and IPFS are fundamental for building an NFT marketplace. The database helps store, interpret and access data points of users, NFTs and other important assets. It also helps assure no data repetition and consistency is maintained in all data points. IPFS is a global standard storage solution which collects files with automatic backup and versioning.

When developing NFT Marketplace, you must ensure that the data is easily accessible and retrievable. Proper database and storage solutions also help encrypt communications, increase streaming speed and make the NFT marketplace much more secure and reliable.

Test your NFT Marketplace with custom Test Cases

Testing is paramount to any software or solution. NFT Marketplace needs to be adequately tested before being available to the public. And the challenge with testing the NFT marketplace is not in the testing process but in writing custom test cases that test your NFT marketplaces against real challenges. However, there are many reliable NFT testing tools that you can leverage to ease this process.

What should you test in your NFT Marketplace?

Putting your NFT Marketplace through Testnet

Last but not least and not to be missed, you should put your NFT marketplace app through testnet. Testnet allows monitoring of real-time functions and activities like the functional flow of individual modules, platform speed and other important metrics. This can be shared with a selected group of potential clients, just like MVP for web app development, who can then give constructive feedback to improvise the NFT marketplace in areas it lacks.

Congrats 🤩 you have successfully built your NFT Marketplace👍🏻

And after following this elaborative and precise NFT marketplace development process, you have finally built an NFT marketplace that is highly scalable, secure, robust and industry-grade.

NFT Marketplace – User Flow

Now that we have successfully developed our NFT Marketplace, we should also know the primary user flow of how the NFT marketplace function. Here is a basic user flow of any NFT marketplace:

• User signs up and installs digital wallet for NFTs
• User creates an NFT as per the defined parameters and set guidelines of the NFT marketplace
• User lists out all their digital arts for sale on the NFT platform
• User markets their NFT on the platform to attract auctioneers
• Auctioneers/Sellers bid on the NFT set by the User/Seller
• The Seller sells the crypto-based digital asset to the Highest Bidder

Final Words

Now you know how to make your NFT Marketplace and whether taking on this venture is feasible for you or not. We hope this guide on NFT marketplace development helps you get the bigger picture and be more prepared for building one of the best NFT marketplaces for your business.