OpenSea has been the OG NFT marketplace for a while now. Despite some major concerns shared by some of its users, for many it was unlikely that OpenSea’s position in the market would be usurped.
Until shortly.
LooksRare launched in January and the space hasn’t been the same since then. Shortly after its launch, LooksRare was even in the news after repeatedly catching up with the OG’s daily volume. This status quo was consistently maintained from January 12 to February 11.
Source: Dune Analytics
Needless to say, such evidence is likely to spark speculation that OpenSea’s time in the sun could be done. Could be. Maybe not. What is unfortunately clear is that OpenSea is not sitting still. According to reports, it is even working on integrating Solana-based NFTs plus Phantom wallet support.
Phase 2 – A halving of the fortune?
That would be digressing from the point though, as it’s time to take a closer look at LooksRare. In recent weeks, much has been made of the new upstart. Now, we won’t go into all that here, but look what has been written about the allegations of wash-trading against it, for example.
In terms of ecosystems, LooksRare was in the news recently after moving forward with Phase 2. At the same time, LOOKS rewards, both for trading and staking, have been reduced by more than 50%. Thanks to the same, there are now fewer LOOKS in circulation. In addition, some LOOKS will be allocated to long-term Uniswap V3 liquidity. The next reward halving is scheduled for less than 90 days.
How’s LooksRare going then? Well, it hasn’t been the best of times when certain data sets are taken into account. Especially if you compare it with the figures for January. The same was the subject of the latest Santiment Insights report.
Probably not according to plan…
In the days following the halving, LooksRare’s user count, trading volume and fees generated fell to its lowest point in more than a month. In the past 24 hours, OpenSea has caught up with LooksRare’s daily volume for the first time in a month.
Source: Dune Analytics/Santiment
Will this be enough to bring the LooksRare train to a halt any time soon? Probably not, with one analyst actually to claim that the APR is attractive enough for wash traders to keep it going for the next 90 days.
However, it would be too simple and unreasonable to look at just one set of metrics. What do other statistics say?
The metric side of things
Consider, for example, the issue of Supply on Exchanges. As can be seen in the chart below, the supply of LOOKS on exchanges has been steadily increasing over the past few weeks. Usually, the accumulation of a token’s stock on exchanges is a sign of increasing selling pressure.
This is also the case here, where the same corresponds to a drop in the price of the altcoin. While some had hoped that the reward halving might slow this descent, it hasn’t happened.
Source: Santiment
Then there’s the matter of network growth, a metric that has fallen dramatically since the last quarter of January. According to Santiment,
“Probably because most people have claimed their LOOKS and moved on. At the moment there just isn’t enough new demand to jack up prices.”
Source: Santiment
But is it all bad news for LOOKS? Well not really.
For example, active addresses of 1 hour before LOOKS have been normalizing lately.
Finally, there is the small issue of the balance on the strike contract. As highlighted by the crypto analytics platform, the balance on the same has continued to rise in recent days despite the decline in alt price. In fact, with the same massive influx of late, nearly 85% of all LOOKS are deployed.
“…which may indicate that whales and strong hands are not scared of the price action.”
Source: Santiment
It’s hard to tell where LOOKS and LooksRare are going from here. What is clear, however, is that there is still a long way to go before the “competition” between OpenSea and LooksRare can remain one.
This post OpenSea v. LooksRare – Estimating the probability that it is even a ‘match’
was published first on https://ambcrypto.com/opensea-v-looksrare-assessing-the-odds-of-it-even-being-a-contest/
