The NFT market peaked in 2021-2022 and has contracted significantly since. But trading activity continues, new use cases are emerging, and the infrastructure for NFT trading — including cross-chain capabilities — has matured considerably. For users who hold NFT positions or are entering the NFT space for utility rather than speculation, understanding current trading infrastructure and cross-chain capabilities is practically useful.
The Current NFT Marketplace Landscape
Blur — Became the dominant NFT marketplace in 2023 by offering zero-fee trading, aggregation across multiple platforms, and token incentives (BLUR) for active traders. Particularly strong for professional and active traders who optimize for execution efficiency.
OpenSea — The original dominant marketplace, now #2 by volume. More user-friendly for casual users; better browser-based discovery experience. Reduced fees in response to Blur competition.
OpenSea Pro (formerly Gem) — The aggregator/professional version of OpenSea, competing with Blur for active traders.
Magic Eden — Originally Solana-focused, now multi-chain (Ethereum, Bitcoin Ordinals, Polygon). Strong in gaming NFTs and Solana native markets.
Tensor — Solana's leading NFT marketplace, with professional trading features similar to Blur.
Sudoswap — AMM-based NFT liquidity. Provides instant liquidity for NFTs through AMM pools, solving the "no bids" problem for illiquid collections.
How NFT Liquidity Actually Works
NFTs are individually unique — unlike fungible tokens, each NFT may have different traits and different perceived value. This creates a liquidity challenge: the floor price (the price of the cheapest listed NFT in a collection) matters, but individual NFTs trade at premiums or discounts based on their specific traits.
Active NFT liquidity mechanisms:
- Order book markets (OpenSea, Blur) — Sellers list at asking prices; buyers place bids. Liquidity is thin for most NFTs.
- Collection offers — Buyers place bids on "any NFT in this collection at this price." Sellers can instantly sell to these offers. Blur popularized collection-wide bids.
- AMM pools (Sudoswap) — Liquidity providers deposit NFTs into pools with programmatic pricing curves, providing instant buy/sell liquidity similar to DeFi token AMMs.
- Lending (NFTfi, Blend, Arcade) — NFT holders can borrow against their NFTs as collateral, accessing liquidity without selling.
Cross-Chain NFT Infrastructure
NFTs are increasingly multi-chain, with collections existing or bridging across Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and other networks.
LayerZero ONFT (Omnichain NFT) — Standard for NFTs that can be locked on one chain and minted on another. NFT projects using ONFT can have a single token that exists across multiple chains, with the holder choosing which chain to hold it on.
Wormhole NFT Bridge — Enables NFT movement between Ethereum, Solana, and other supported chains. Has suffered exploits in its token bridge, making trust evaluation important.
Polygon Bridge — Enables NFTs to move between Ethereum and Polygon. Widely used for gaming NFTs where Polygon's low fees make frequent trading more practical.
Bitcoin Ordinals — A newer NFT format inscribed directly on Bitcoin's blockchain, using the Ordinals protocol. Not bridgeable in the traditional sense, but has attracted significant collector interest and marketplace development (Magic Eden, Ordinals Wallet, OKX).
NFT Royalties: The Ongoing Dispute
Creator royalties — percentages of secondary sales paid to original creators — have been a contested area. The original promise was that smart contract royalties would be automatically enforced, providing creators ongoing income from secondary trading.
In practice, marketplaces have discretion over whether to collect and pay royalties. Blur initially offered optional royalties to attract volume; this damaged creator income but attracted trader-focused users. OpenSea implemented royalty enforcement for collections using its on-chain enforcement mechanism; Blur eventually moved toward enforcing royalties for new collections that opt in.
The outcome: royalties are now optional infrastructure that depends on marketplace cooperation, not automatic enforcement. Creators who build royalty dependency into their project models face business risk.
Evaluating NFT Positions: Current Reality
For users with existing NFT holdings from 2021-2022 peak periods:
- Floor prices across most collections have declined 90%+ from peaks — Realistic valuation using current floor prices, not entry prices
- Thin secondary liquidity — Many mid-tier collections have low bid depth; selling at floor may not be possible at volume
- Blur bids vs. OpenSea listings — Checking active bids on Blur is often more relevant than floor prices for determining actual immediate liquidity
For users considering new NFT positions, the clearest value propositions currently are: gaming NFTs with genuine in-game utility, music royalty NFTs, and NFT-gated access passes for communities or events — rather than purely speculative PFP collections.
