If you’ve ever attempted to explore the non-fungible token (NFT) world, odds are you’ve heard of OpenSea. The platform is probably the most prominent gateway to the NFT market, and you may be considering it as the marketplace you’ll use to explore and start interacting with the space.

Before you get started, it’s important to have a basic understanding of how it works. Here, you will find everything you need to know about OpenSea, including how to create, buy and sell NFTs.

But first, let us brush up on some of the basics of NFTs and why you will need a marketplace like OpenSea to access them.

Since bitcoin launched in 2009, people are becoming more accustomed to buying and owning assets that exist only in the digital world. With blockchain as the underlying technology, cryptocurrency enables a way to own and transfer value on the internet without necessarily involving a third party. Interestingly, NFTs build on this functionality to create new possibilities centered around the uniqueness of digital assets.

Whereas crypto assets like bitcoin and ether are fungible, or exchangeable, NFTs, thanks to blockchain technology, enable digital assets that are verifiably unique and unexchangeable. In other words, NFTs provide the much-needed non-fungibility for bringing unique digital assets and real-world assets to the blockchain.

An NFT can represent digital art, an in-game asset, music or any other item that requires a system for authenticating its uniqueness, rareness and ownership status in the digital realm.

The ownership of an NFT can be transferred in exchange for digital currencies without involving third parties. However, for this to happen, interested buyers and sellers must perform this task on a platform specially designed to allow the listing, buying and selling of NFTs. These platforms are called NFT marketplaces.

OpenSea is an NFT marketplace that keyed into the NFT movement early enough to establish itself as not only the preferred choice for NFT traders but also the favored destination for NFT developers. Apart from its first-mover advantage, OpenSea’s successes can also be traced to its open-world design that allows anyone to create NFTs for free, as well as buy and sell them on a verifiable infrastructure powered by blockchain technology. This open-world design has attracted NFT creators in droves, as there are little or no restrictions in place to stifle the creative and transactional processes involved.

While this is viewed by some as a vital aspect of OpenSea's operations, the lack of restrictions has been identified as a ticking time bomb, so much so that OpenSea briefly restricted the number of NFTs each user can mint, only for the team to reverse its decision after receiving backlash from the community for the move.

Regardless of the controversies surrounding OpenSea’s operations, it remains the largest NFT marketplace, with over $3.5 billion worth of Ethereum-based NFT trades processed in August 2021 alone. To put this stat into perspective, OpenSea posted just $20 million worth of NFT trading volume for the entirety of 2020.

Here are the things to look out for when using OpenSea.

As a new user, you will need to register an account before you can start to interact with NFTs on OpenSea. To do this, you need to set up a wallet, preferably the MetaMask extension on Google Chrome. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to set up a MetaMask wallet.

Once you have your wallet ready, continue with the following steps to set up an account on OpenSea.

On the homepage of OpenSea, click the wallet icon at the right corner of the website to connect your newly created wallet. You will see a prompt requesting that you choose your preferred wallet. Pick the wallet of your choice (which, in this case, will be MetaMask) and complete the connection process from your wallet.

After setting up your wallet, you will be navigated to your default profile page on OpenSea. Since this account is in the default state, you need to personalize your account. Before this, OpenSea will prompt you to sign an agreement to continue. Once you scale this stage, you can customize your account by entering a username, writing a bio and adding a profile picture.

Read more: Minting Your First NFT: A Complete Beginner's Guide

At this juncture, you are ready to start minting NFTs. One thing you should have at the back of your mind, however, is that depending on the blockchain you intend to create NFTs on, you may need to have enough coins in your wallet to cover the applicable transaction fees. If you have that covered, you can start minting with the following steps.

From your account page, if you’re only looking to create single NFTs, click on “Create” and enter a name, description URL link and anything else you want to include. Scroll to the bottom and click the lower “Create” to mint it on the blockchain.

To create a collection, you’ll need to click on your account icon, then “My collections.” Under the “Create new collection” option, click on "Create" to set a collection name, enter a description and upload an image. You can play around with the various editing tools on this page to give your collection a really unique feel.

To mint an NFT under the collection you just created, click "Add New Item." You will be navigated to a page where you can enter the name of the NFT and upload metadata, such as an image, video or audio file. You can also add properties, like the year the NFT was created, to help potential buyers filter NFTs in your collection.

After creating your NFT, you can list it on OpenSea for sale. You can follow the steps below to do just that.

Read more: NFT Scams: How to Avoid Falling Victim

When buying NFTs on OpenSea, you can either purchase items with fixed prices or make an offer. You can follow these steps to buy NFTs at fixed prices.

Now that you are familiar with the process of buying NFTs with fixed prices, the following steps illustrate how to purchase items on auction.