Looks Rare Trading Volume Surpasses OpenSea, NFT Market Battle Begins
Recently, the emerging NFT platform Looks Rare has gained rapid momentum. After launching Trading rewards, its Trading volume quickly surpassed OpenSea, and the LOOKS token price reached new highs. In just two weeks, Looks Rare has taken the "top seat" in the NFT market, becoming the market focus. So, what is Looks Rare's background? Will OpenSea continue to lose market share? How will the competitive landscape of the NFT market evolve?
Why Has Looks Rare Overtaken the Competition?
On January 23, data from Dappradar showed that Looks Rare's 7-day trading volume reached $1 billion, surpassing OpenSea's $726 million. Last week, Looks Rare's 7-day trading volume once reached $3.6 billion, with 24-hour Trading volume peaking at $700 million—5 times that of OpenSea in the same period. As Looks Rare's Trading volume surged, the LOOKS token price broke through $7.1 on January 21, reaching a new historical high.
LOOKS is the governance token of the Looks Rare platform. Three-quarters of the total supply belongs to the community, with 63% used to incentivize token stakers and platform Traders, and the remaining 12% allocated as retroactive airdrop rewards. The token distribution method reflects the platform's community-centered approach. According to the official website, Looks Rare is a newly launched community-led NFT Trading market on Ethereum by an anonymous team. On January 10, 2022, it officially launched the LOOKS token and conducted an airdrop to OpenSea users. Anyone who Traded 3 ETH or more on OpenSea between June 16, 2021 and December 16, 2021, and listed one NFT on Looks Rare, could receive LOOKS token airdrops without needing to complete a transaction.
So, why was Looks Rare able to rapidly surpass OpenSea, which has long held the number one market position?
This is mainly due to its Trading incentive mechanism and innovative features. According to the official website, Looks Rare's rewards are mainly divided into two types: Trading rewards and staking rewards. Trading fees (WETH) are earned 100% by LOOKS token holders. Users can earn LOOKS and WETH tokens by Tring NFTs on their platform and staking LOOKS tokens. Currently, the official website shows that the APR (annual percentage rate) for staking LOOKS tokens is around 303%, while WETH's APR is approximately 267%. Additionally, to increase the liquidity of LOOKS tokens, Looks Rare also provides LOOKS tokens as rewards for users holding LOOKS-ETH Uniswap V2 LP tokens. The initial liquidity program will last for 500,000 blocks (approximately 77 days), with a reward rate of 10 LOOKS per block for LP stakers.
In terms of innovation, Looks Rare has designed some new features based on most current NFT Trading platforms, mainly including: one-click quotes, mixed payments, and instant royalties. Users on the Looks Rare platform can easily use the one-click quote feature, and all pending orders can be cancelled with one click—this is simpler and more convenient compared to the experience of listing sell orders and placing bulk bids waiting for execution. Mixed payment means supporting both ETH and WETH for payments, while the OpenSea platform uses ETH for payments and WETH for bid auctions. Looks Rare's mixed payment offers better user experience and eliminates the Gas fees required for token conversion. Instant royalties means that unlike OpenSea, which distributes royalty income to creators every two weeks, Looks Rare distributes royalty income instantly to creators for every transaction, which may incentivize more creators to publish their works.
Can It Shake OpenSea's Position?
Looks Rare's rapid rise has challenged OpenSea and injected new energy into the booming NFT market. As for whether it can truly disrupt OpenSea and establish a foothold, it still faces many challenges, such as whether its incentive mechanism and platform liquidity solution are sustainable.
Currently, Looks Rare's performance is not stable, with a considerable gap in active users and Trading volume compared to OpenSea. The latest data shows that Looks Rare had 737 users in the past 24 hours, a 32% decrease from the previous day, with a very obvious trend of declining New users. OpenSea's user count was 44,200, with active users mainly consisting of retained users, and daily active users decreased by 8.59% from the previous day.
Looks Rare's daily Trading volume fluctuates violently between 0-130,000 ETH, while OpenSea mainly concentrates between 500-5,000 ETH, with relatively smaller volatility. OpenSea's daily transaction count is 20-100 times that of Looks Rare.
From the perspective of "Smart Money" holders and their movements, Looks Rare also clearly cannot surpass OpenSea in the short term. Currently, smart money NFT market activity is mainly concentrated on the OpenSea platform, basically above 80-90%. OpenSea's NFT whale user activity also accounts for over 90% of the entire market. In terms of daily active "smart money" users, Looks Rare's minting users have significantly decreased, and while OpenSea's daily active user count also shows a downward trend, it's relatively gradual, with its holders and Traders still approximately 15 times more than Looks Rare.
Therefore, from the data in various dimensions above, although the Looks Rare platform briefly reached the top of trading volume, its performance in active users and trading amounts is extremely unstable, meaning its user base and stickiness are not solid. Even though Looks Rare surpasses OpenSea in some user experiences and innovative features, and while OpenSea faces some criticism and dissatisfaction, its leading position is not so easily shaken. What measures will Looks Rare take next to continue capturing the NFT market? We await to see.
Tech Giants Join the NFT Platform Battle
It's worth noting that the NFT pie is not only coveted by emerging platforms like Looks Rare. Although crypto asset price trends are sluggish, the NFT market is still growing rapidly. According to data from NFTGO, the current total NFT market value is $12.422 billion, with over 16 million holders. The latest data shows that total NFT on-chain sales have surpassed $25 billion. Currently, the top five blockchains by sales volume are Ethereum, Ronin, Solana, FLOW , and WAX. Jefferies investment bank analysts predict that NFT market capitalization will exceed $35 billion in 2022 and $80 billion in 2025.
As NFTs continue to go mainstream and the market continues to expand, many internationally renowned brands and companies, including LV, have joined the NFT ranks to seize this high ground. Since the second half of last year, this trend has continued to accelerate. In addition to the continuous emergence of new platforms like Looks Rare, mainstream Trading exchanges have long laid out in the NFT field, such as the NFT market in OKX Meta X. Recently, many global leading tech giants are accelerating their entry into the NFT market.
First is Meta, which just announced its transformation to the metaverse last year. It plans to launch an NFT market for users to buy and sell NFTs, and will also launch new features for users to mint NFTs. At the same time, Meta intends to support users in displaying NFTs on their profiles across its social platforms Facebook and Instagram.
In this NFT market battle, Meta is not the only company wanting to launch an NFT market. Recently, well-known social network giant LINE announced that it will launch a one-stop NFT platform DOSI to users in 180 countries worldwide in the first quarter of this year, providing a series of services for creating and Tring NFTs. According to reports, the name "DOSI" comes from the Korean word for "city." When launched, the DOSI platform will provide three major services: DOSI Store, DOSI Wallet, and DOSI Support. These products can provide support including NFT creation and marketing. Creators can list their works on DOSI and use the NFT wallet provided by the platform to use crypto assets (such as ETH, BTC ) or credit cards for Trading .
Twitter's crypto team, established last year, is currently hiring senior product managers and will focus on NFT, DAO, Web3, and other fields, designing specific crypto products and features. Previously, the team had launched an NFT avatar verification service to subscribed users. Therefore, it can be predicted that as long as the NFT market maintains growth, the trend of large companies entering the market competition will continue. This market battle may have just begun. Among them, the NFT markets launched by Trading platforms provide users with convenient gameplay and services, occupying a certain first-mover advantage in the NFT market by virtue of their ecosystem, technology, and existing active user advantages. So what challenges will latecomers face, and how will they join and inject new vitality into the NFT market? This question paper is left to the many competitors currently entering the NFT platform battle.
Disclaimer
This article may contain product-related content not applicable to your region. This article is intended to provide general information only and does not assume responsibility for any factual errors or omissions herein. This article represents only the author's personal views and does not represent the views of OKX. This article is not intended to provide any advice, including but not limited to: (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins) involves high risk, may fluctuate significantly, and may even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether Trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. For questions about your specific situation, please consult your legal/tax/investment professional. The information appearing in this article (including market data and statistics, if any) is for general reference only. While we have taken all reasonable precautions in preparing these data and charts, we assume no responsibility for any factual errors or omissions expressed herein. © 2025 OKX. This article may be reproduced or distributed in its entirety, or excerpts of 100 words or less from this article may be used, provided that such use is non-commercial. Any reproduction or distribution of the entire article must also prominently state: "This article is copyrighted © 2025 OKX, used with permission." Permitted excerpts must cite the article name and include the source, for example "Article Name, [Author Name (if applicable)], © 2025 OKX". Some content may be generated or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Derivative works or other uses of this article are not permitted.
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