In this guide we take a look at the best NFT marketplaces, and we dive into how you can trade items and earn crypto. It’s important to understand that earning doesn’t only happen by selling. Many of these NFT marketplaces have their own token, or their own point system. You can earn from trading and selling NFTs, but also by collecting points.
Since the breakthrough of NFT marketplaces in 2020, a wide variety of trading and farming opportunities have risen. At the same time, the NFT market has developed from a market full of euphoria, to one with a lot more cautious users, investors and project leaders. On NFT marketplaces you can trade all kinds of assets, ranging from high-end digital artworks to NFT licenses, membership passes or game items.
2026 kicked off with a shimmer of hope for the NFT market. Various CryptoPunks have traded for premium prices, while Nike sold the RTFKT brand and CloneX NFTs to an undisclosed party. In addition, marketplaces on TON are thriving right now. While looking at NFT collections with the highest sales count, we find 6 collections belonging to video games. This includes titles like the battle royale shooter Off the Grid, fantasy football card game Sorare, play-to-earn battle game Axie Infinity, card game Gods Unchained and mobile game Fishing Frenzy. These games see their communities trade thousands of game items per week.
Types of NFT marketplaces
NFT marketplaces are platforms where users can buy, sell, trade or mint non-fungible tokens, or simply NFTs. These marketplaces vary on focus, their functionality, and their target audience. Some may only cater to tokenized assets, real-world assets or RWAs, while others want to serve to only NFTs on a certain blockchain, or within a certain product genre. Some platforms fit in multiple categories listed below, including OpenSea. We can differentiate various types of NFT marketplaces, which we have listed below:
- Open marketplaces – support a wide variety of NFTs for a broad audience, and include platforms such as OpenSea, Rarible and Blur.
- Curated marketplaces – offer support to curated creators or collections, focusing on high quality or exclusive NFTs, such as SuperRare and Foundation.
- Gaming marketplaces – only support NFTs used in games, such as in-game items, characters or virtual land, such as Axie Marketplace and Magic Eden.
- Domain name marketplaces – focus on blockchain-based domain names, such as Ethereum Name Service and Unstoppable Domains.
- Music NFT marketplaces – allow users to buy and trade music-related NFTs, including tracks and artist collectibles. Examples include Sound.xyz and Catalog.
- Fractionalized NFT marketplaces – let users trade fractional ownership over high-value NFT assets, including Fractional and Unicly.
- Chain marketplaces – only support NFTs on very specific blockchains, such as Solanart on Solana and LooksRare on Ethereum.
- Physical-backed NFT marketplaces – allows users to trade NFTs linked to physical assets, such as collectibles and RWAs. Examples: Courtyard and PhysicalNFT.
How to earn on NFT marketplaces
Simply put, buying items cheap and then selling them for more, will allow you to make money from NFT marketplaces. However, it’s not always that simple. We have curated a listed of 5 valuable tips that may help you to earn from your trading activity on NFT marketplaces:
- Buy before the news (not after the news) – Buying NFTs before a major event is often a way to increase the value of your portfolio. For example, buying the Gemesis NFTs before OpenSea launched their 2.0 version, would’ve allowed you to double your portfolio value.
- Act fast on negative news – However, the same goes up from negative news. Within a few days after Ember Sword announced their closing, land prices dropped from hundreds of dollars to $2.65. Knowing information early can help you save money as well.
- Find market opportunities – When 3 NFTs are priced at 1 SOL, and 20 NFTs for 1.2 SOL, then it’s a smart idea to buy the 3 NFTs. You can then immediately sell them for 1.1 SOL, making 0.3 SOL profit.
- Collect points – Marketplaces such as OpenSea 2.0, Magic Eden and Blur allow users to earn points. These points can then later be converted into crypto rewards. Often you earn points by buying, selling and trading NFTs. In addition, minting NFTs or placing bids can help to earn you points.
- NFT lending – Currently it’s only a $80 million market segment, but NFT lending allows you to earn from your NFTs without really selling them. However, platforms such as Blur, NFTfi and Gondi are suitable for lending and borrowing assets.
6 NFT Marketplaces you need to check out
β΅ OpenSea
With 1.7 million NFTs sold in a month, OpenSea is the clear market leader. They support a wide variety of blockchains, have different services, recently launched OpenSea 2.0, and are responsible for more than $100 million in trading volume per month.
π©· Axie Marketplace
Axie Marketplace may support only the Axie Infinity ecosystem on Ronin Network, but it’s still thriving. Over 26,000 traders per month are active on the platform, trading 175,000 items. However, these assets tend to be a bit cheaper, resulting in a total trading volume of less than $1 million per month.
π Blur
Blur changed the game by gamifying NFT trading, and because of that they still have a high average price per NFT sold: $2,000+. With 11,000 traders per month the platform generated over $50 million in volume, placing it second in the NFT marketplace rankings.
π Magic Eden
Magic Eden has become a full-fledged NFT platform, including a marketplace, launchpad, tokens and more. Their origins are on Solana, but they are now active on a wide variety of chains. They generated just below 100,000 sales in the past 30 days, resulting in $15 million in volume.
π TokenTrove
Immutable is abandoning their own marketplace to make way for third-parties, and TokenTrove is currently one of the leaders on Immutable X and Immutable zkEVM. The marketplace offers all the features you may expect, and even lets you download your trading history for tax purposes.
π Courtyard
Courtyard is one of the biggest NFT marketplaces of 2025, and solely dedicated to tokenized collectible cards. That means PokΓ©mon, NBA, MLB and many other collectibles cards have been tokenized as NFT, can be traded by users, and later redeemed by the NFT holder.
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