[Feature] Element Airdrop Token Incoming. Don't Fade the Next Big NFT Marketplace!

Good news to all NFT collectors and traders! If you have missed out on the airdrop of sudoswap, remember not to fade this hottest NFT marketplace in town! Launched back in July 2021, Element is gaining traction over the past month as it starts to make appearances by hosting several AMAs and collaborating with NFT personalities.

What is so special about Element? It is an NFT marketplace itself and at the same time, also an aggregated NFT marketplace. Aggregated marketplace or simply “aggregator”, gathers listings from multiple marketplaces and platforms, and shows all of them in one interface. Two of the biggest competitors in the aggregator scene, genie.xyz and gem.xyz, used to dominate the market share. However, both of them went a little bit quiet after being acquired by Uniswap and OpenSea respectively. Being overshadowed by the big players for quite some time, it is Element’s time to shine now.

As you may know that I am an NFT enthusiast, I have tried all different kinds of NFT marketplaces, aggregators, you name it. OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace in trading volume, honestly is frustrating me the more and the more I use it, and a lot of users are complaining too. Aggregator wise, in general, Element is much smoother to use and the UI is also more user-friendly. The most important feature is, as an aggregator, Element makes wonder in its smart contract, the gas fee (ETH) is very well-optimized and makes little to no difference buying directly from the original marketplace. As they say, "seeing is believing", let me introduce some of the neat features in Element and also useful NFT trading tips. P/S: This is not a collaboration post and is solely based on my own user experience and honest verdict.

1. Gas fee

Anything we do in blockchain requires transaction fees, especially the Ethereum chain. The pain point of being an ETH-based NFT collector is often we got dragged into “gas war” whereby the transaction fees would go 5 or even 10 times higher in a sudden. Rarely do we see this situation happens to other major NFT blockchains, say BSC, Polygon, Solana, etc. Therefore, the gas fee is always one of the main concerns (for Ethereum), especially the time when we are trying to sweep the floor.

The example shown below is the gas fee of sweeping 10 ENS from OpenSea using aggregators. genie.xyz is basically out of the game as it doesn’t even offer ENS collection - the most traded NFT in the market - and also consumes the highest gas fee.

Trading tip: Combined NFT purchases from different marketplaces in one sweep will incur more gas fees.

2. Listing

Element is also an NFT marketplace itself besides an aggregator. It charges the lowest market fee of 0.5% (for now) and bypasses royalty fees depending on the collection setting. gem.xyz and genie.xyz do not offer listing on their own marketplace.

Trading tip: Even though Element is one of the most used aggregators right now, its marketplace is not. Your NFT that is listed on Element might not be seen as the majority of NFT collectors and traders are still using OpenSea.

3. User interface

Element’s website offers a smooth user experience with well-written coding and clean UI. I am able to scroll through thousands of JPEGs in my wallet without any lagginess.

Trading tip: The smoothness of the website is very crucial when trading popular collections.

4. Rewards

Element is releasing its native token ELE soon and you can start earning airdrop tokens right now. While there is not much detail about ELE tokenomics for now, I believe it does work the same as LooksRare or X2Y2 token, in which you earn a share of the market fee by staking the tokens.

Currently, Element is hosting a 2-month campaign until 5th of November, for users to earn ELE by buying, selling, and listing NFT on the platform. You may also invite friends or simply sign in every day to earn tokens. Check out https://www.element.market/reward for more info.

Trading tip: Only selected NFT collections are eligible for token earning. It is not advisable to purchase a specific NFT collection just to earn the ELE rewards, as you might suffer a loss in NFT’s floor price. Bear in mind we are still somehow in the crypto and NFT bear market right now.

The ELE rewards will be reduced if the NFT floor price is constantly dropping

Overall, Element provides everything that an NFT collector would need and smoothen the whole trading process. I have been enjoying using it for the past whole month. The downsides of Element probably are some typos here and there, and a less active marketplace. I believe as time goes by, it has the potential to become the largest aggregator and compete with OpenSea in trading volume.