NFTs are changing the face of various industries across the world. For this reason, building an NFT marketplace has become a very profitable and innovative business. The tremendous market growth of the NFT industry will soon exceed the market share of $40 billion. NFTs are becoming the most important component for content creators and businesses to attain legal rights over their content and patents. In this blog, we are going to talk about the complete roadmap for NFT marketplace development.
To understand the concept of NFTs, it is important to look at the definition first;
What is an NFT?
An NFT or a Non-Fungible Token is basically a cryptographic token of a digital asset present on a Blockchain. Therefore, the users are able to create NFTs of almost any digital content like images, videos, text, social media posts, gaming collectibles, tickets, etc. However, it is also possible to create NFTs of real-world assets like properties or artwork.
Prominent businesses often look for the best NFT development companies to develop their own NFTs. However, NFTs are very different from cryptocurrencies. It is not possible to divide or replicate NFTs present on a Blockchain. Above all, each NFT has a unique identity and is cryptographically encrypted. Therefore, it is almost impossible to steal, hack, or counterfeit an NFT.
Each NFT on a marketplace has a unique value and the following characteristics;
- Indivisible
- Authentic
- Non-Interoperable
- Tradable
- Connected with various Blockchain ecosystems
- Good Liquidity
- Programmability
Incredible Growth of NFT Marketplaces
To give you a clear idea of why businesses are looking for the best NFT development companies, you need to learn about the potential growth of this industry.
The first-ever tweet from the CEO of Twitter was sold at an astonishing price of $2.9 million after converting it into an NFT.
The next story is about Beeple’s Crypto art, which has become the most expensive NFT ever sold with a jaw-dropping price tag of $69 million. Presently, every day around 50,000 NFTs are sold across the world. Ultimately, this shows the potential of investing in NFT marketplace development.
How Does an NFT Marketplace Actually Function?
Before start discussing the roadmap for NFT marketplace development, it becomes to learn how an NFT marketplace actually works;
- The user creates a new user account on an NFT marketplace
- Then it is important to link a crypto wallet to the marketplace to start trading
- After this, NFT is configured for the marketplace
- Next, the NFT gets uploaded to the marketplace
- The moderators are responsible for moderating the NFT listings
- The NFT is finally approved and gets listed on the NFT marketplace
- People start bidding on the NFT to acquire ownership
- The NFT is sold to the top bidder, and the ownership gets changed
- All transactions on the marketplace are managed through a crypto wallet.
The Roadmap for NFT Marketplace Development in 2023
So far, you have understood the basics and current market of NFT marketplaces. Now, we will understand the process of NFT marketplace development through the roadmap for NFT marketplace development;
Choosing the Niche of Your Marketplace
Before you get started with NFT marketplace development, it is very important to determine the niche of your marketplace. Since there are different communities in different types of NFT, you cannot be the jack of all trades and deal with every niche. Moreover, developing a marketplace for all niches would only increase your NFT marketplace development cost.
Therefore, it would be highly advisable to choose a niche of digital assets for your NFT marketplace. These are some of the most prominent niches for NFT marketplaces;
- Images
- Music
- Videos
- Videos
- Domain Names
- Trading Cards
- Gaming
- Collectables
- Social Media Posts
Hiring the Right Development Team
Working on Blockchain technology itself could be a very challenging task, especially if you don’t have any experience with decentralization. You might have the option to build a dedicated in-house team, hire freelancers, or outsource your project to one of the best NFT development companies.
However, outsourcing will prove to be the most cost-effective and efficient way of developing your NFT marketplace. They will provide you with more scalable and customizable solutions for NFT marketplace development. Moreover, you would be able to instantly handpick professionals from their talent pool.
Investing in the Design Aspects
The UI/UX design of an NFT marketplace is very important because it would help you create the first impression on the users. Therefore, you must focus on creating a minimalist, custom, and user-friendly UI/UX for your NFT marketplace.
The design aspect of such a marketplace is very similar to traditional eCommerce development. In fact, instead of real-world products, you will be selling digital assets on the marketplace. Therefore, always try to think from the user’s point of view while working on the design aspects.
The proficient designing team will be working on multiple wireframes, user guides, and prototypes to provide you with a final polished design.
Implementing the Right Technology
An NFT marketplace has to fulfill the needs of a huge audience. Therefore, you must select the right technology stack to suffice the needs of your NFT marketplace. The chosen technology will also affect the features of the NFT marketplace that you want to implement.
Therefore, your technology stack should provide a smooth experience with super fast page loading speeds and must be able to handle heavy loads.
Creating the Feature List of Your NFT Marketplace
Once you have designed the UI/UX with the support of one of the best NFT development companies, you have to define the feature list for your NFT marketplace to fulfill the needs of your target customers. Having the right features will help you ensure longer engagement and better loyalty for your marketplace. These are some of the most common features of NFT marketplace development in 2023;
Working on an MVP First
You cannot rush in with the NFT marketplace development process by building an app in one go. In fact, it is highly advisable to build a functional MVP first to get a fair idea about the viability of your NFT marketplace. Furthermore, this would also help you to understand how exactly features are getting implemented in your marketplace.
Core Development Process
The core NFT marketplace development process involves the amalgamation of various technologies and features to create the front-end and back-end of the NFT marketplace. Thus, a longer core development process might mean an increase in NFT marketplace development cost.
Your development team must follow Agile methodologies to keep the process smooth, transparent, and adaptable to changes. Moreover, it would be advisable to hire one of the best NFT development companies to get constant updates about each milestone.
Extensive Testing and Deployment
Any digital product is incomplete without proper testing with multiple test cases. Therefore, you should also build complex test cases during the NFT development process. Above all, it would help you check the security, performance, security, integrity, and reliability of the platform. You must rely on both manual and automated testing approaches to ensure a high-quality product in the end.
Before actually deploying your NFT marketplace, it is always a good idea to launch a demo edition to get feedback from actual users and make last-minute changes. Above all, constructive feedback is always useful to make alterations in your NFT marketplace. It would also help you to keep up with the constant changes in the market and user requirements and adapt to them accordingly.
How Much Does it Cost to Build an NFT Marketplace in 2023?
It is quite hard to provide an accurate estimate of the NFT marketplace development cost. There could be tons of internal and external factors that might influence the cost of developing an NFT marketplace in 2023.
For example, the development approach, team, scale of the NFT marketplace, complexity, features, and region might create a significant impact on the NFT marketplace development cost. Anyway, you must be ready to make an investment of at least $31,950 to create your NFT marketplace.
Summing Up
Developing an NFT marketplace can provide you with an incredible ROI for your business. However, it would be highly advisable to hire a prominent NFT marketplace development company to help you with the development process. Ultimately, they will have the right expertise with Blockchain technologies and years of experience in building NFT marketplaces.
Author Bio
Erma Winter is a professional Blockchain developer at MobileCoderz, a prominent Blockchain development company. Over the years, she and her team have developed dozens of Blockchain solutions for clients from multiple industry verticals. Lastly, apart from her professional life, she takes a keen interest in surfboarding and playing with her pets.