Nifty Gateway comes with good news as they introduce a solution to reduce Ethereum Fees by 70%.
OpenSea’s competitors are waking up at the end of the year. Nifty Gateway, the Winklevoss brothers’ non-fungible token (NFT) platform, plans to drastically reduce Ethereum fees. How is this possible, and can it be a problem?
Nifty Gateway plans to reduce Ethereum fees by 70%.
Nifty Gateway is one of NFT’s “historic” buy and sell platforms. Until then, it had presented itself more like a digital art gallery, focusing on artist drops. But since the end of October, the platform seems to want to hang up the cars with the rest of the ecosystem and “big” projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club or Pudgy Penguins.
Therefore, the platform is opening up to a wider audience, which goes hand in hand with another desire: that of reducing transaction costs. The two founders of Nifty Gateway, Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster, have indeed revealed that the platform will implement a solution to reduce these by 70%.
For this, Nifty Gateway will rely on a “semi-custodial” model. This model means that the platform will support certain mechanisms of transactions that take place from one wallet to another. This development greatly reduces the number of steps that will take place on the blockchain, according to Duncan Cock Foster:
“Only things that need to take place on the blockchain will take place on the blockchain.”
A way to compete with other platforms.
The Nifty Gateway custody system, which already existed, will therefore take over between the seller and the buyer to reduce costs. For the latter, not much changes in terms of sales. But the difference, of course, is that they’ll have to go through a more centralized model to complete the transaction, which sets the platform apart from its immediate competitors.
For the co-founders of Nifty Gateway, this is a small price to pay when you see the change it can bring:
“We are hopeful and optimistic and believe this will be a blessing for the entire NFT ecosystem while also helping a lot of projects that are experiencing high transaction costs.”
The platform is betting that users will forgive Nifty Gateway for a more centralized model, given the sums potentially saved:
“Ethereum gas charges have become a real problem. For example, if you spend $ 200 on an NFT and the gas charge for the purchase is $ 100, most of the time, you will choose not to buy it.”
Ethereum’s transaction fees: the never-ending story.
Whether we agree or not, one thing is certain: Ethereum’s average transaction fees continue to reach levels deemed excessive by the crypto community. This is especially the case when new users – such as metaverseers – would just require low fees to include small transactions. For example, earlier this month, the average fee for using Ethereum was still over $ 56:
Evolution of average transaction fees on Ethereum: Source Glassnode
This latest development from Nifty Gateway is not enough at this time to threaten the hegemony of Ethereum, which remains the most widely used blockchain for NFTs – by far. But the issue of fees is growing more pressing, as other competitors, including Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA), begin to enter the realm of non-fungible tokens.