If you are a NFT collector who has been in the space for a while, you’ve probably been in a situation where you have an art piece that is cool, but maybe has grown a bit stale in your eyes, and there is another piece that you have your eye on that has a comparable asking price. Something that seems relatively easy, trading a piece for another piece, is quite difficult in the NFT space.
Even more complicated are the more exotic swaps. We use the term “exotic” loosely here, since the idea of trading two Bonsais for a Gutter Cat or two Gutter Cats for a Bored Ape is relatively straightforward in theory, just a lot harder in practice.
Enter NFTTrader.io. This is a cool tool, which we wrote about previously here. We have been recommending NFTTrader.io as an option for people wishing to construct NFTs trades for a while, and recently had a chance to speak with the team directly. The full interview is included below.
NFT CULTURE Q&A WITH NFTTRADER.IO TEAM
NFT Culture
How big is the team? Is it self funded?
NFTTrader.io
We are a team of four from two different continents, North America and Europe. Despite the huge divide, the synergy between us has been fantastic. We each have our own unique skills and experiences, which combined together cover most of the important areas needed for the development of NFT Trader.
This project has been in the works for approximately six months but with our V2 launching only a few weeks ago. In that time we have fully bootstrapped this project and to be honest it has been a difficult ride but since the release of our V2 we have seen an injection of some capital coming from the many more trades developing plus from the continued sales of our own utility based Squad NFTs.
NFT Culture
What was the motivation to launch the project? How long has it been in development?
NFTTrader.io
The motivation that came for us to develop our protocol stemmed from the experiences which some of us had in the early days of the NFT space back in 2017. Throughout the years fraudulent activity around the trading of NFTs has always been a concern, for example people getting scammed by fake accounts or because of deceitful behavior from one of the parties not fulfilling their end of the deal. Now with this year’s boom in the industry, fraud has increased immensely, even the popular secondary NFT marketplaces are becoming hot spots for this behavior.
This is where NFT Trader steps in! From concept to V2, NFT Trader has been in development for about six months and we have been helping NFT owners by providing a secure place for them to trade their NFTs. Instead of going through the longer and risky process of possibly trading NFTs in some marketplaces and through DM’s in Discord or Telegram channels, people can now make their P2P trades openly and securely using NFT Trader.
NFT Culture
As preparation for this interview, we completed a swap on NFTTrader, involving ETH + Wrapped ETH in exchange for a NFT, and the swap went smoothly. We counted 4 transactions total: approval for the WETH spend and contract interaction on the initiator’s (buyer) side. An approval to send the token and a contract interaction on the counterparty (seller) side.
Can you briefly describe what these transactions are for, and what is going on behind the scenes when an exchange like this is executed?
NFTTrader.io
The process is built with diligence around the two parties involved, the initial creator of the trade and the counterparty who will be able to close the deal. Once there is an agreement between both parties of what the trade deal will entail, the initial creator of the swap will on our protocol select the assets (erc721, erc20, erc1155) which will be sent to the counterparty. Next, this same person will choose which asset or assets from the counterparty that they agreed upon trading. When those are all filled, this creator of the trade must now insert the counterparties wallet address on the right side box and then next approve all his assets. For the final step, the creation of the deal will be executed and a unique hyperlink will be generated which is to be shared with the counterparty they are dealing with.
What happens during the deal creation is that the assets will be moved to a secure smart contract and the trade status will be pending until the counterparty closes the proposal and for that to happen, the counterparty must receive from the swap creator the secure link that was generated and click this link to finish the deal.
NFT Culture
What happens if the counterparty abandons the trade? What assurance does the initiator have that the contract interaction will be refunded?
NFTTrader.io
If the counterparty decides to abandon the trade, the initial creator can at any time be able to cancel the deal from their “My Trades” page, “pending” transaction section. Once the deal is cancelled, the assets will be automatically moved from the smart contract back into the initial creator’s wallet and the flat trading fee paid will be completely refunded but not the gas fee. This is a good time to share that we have launched our own Trade Squads utility based NFT collection and for anyone that mints one they will have zero and unlimited trading fees using our protocol as long as they are the owner of one of these NFTs.
NFT Culture
It appears that the initiator pays the gas fees for the overall transaction, is this correct? How is gas limit calculated for the initiator?
NFTTrader.io
Both parties will have to each pay gas fees and a flat trading fee of 0.005 ETH in order to complete the trade. Currently as we have integrated the Metamask wallet for use on our protocol, the gas fees are calculated taking care of the transfer of the assets.
NFT Culture
What is the criteria for inclusion in the NFT or ERC20 list?
NFTTrader.io
We are NFT project agnostic, meaning we will add all types of NFT based dapps, such as collectibles, metaverses, arts, and gaming. So basically we don’t have any specific criterias to whitelist NFT based dapps or erc20 tokens. Our goal is to support any project or token with great communities, from new ones like VeeFriends, Bored Apes YC, Wicked Craniums etc. to the OG’s like Cryptopunks. We want to provide NFT owners the ability to trade interoperably across many types of NFTs and tokens. If anyone has a suggestion or request we are more than willing to check it out. Please let us know.
NFT Culture
Has anyone conducted a large transaction on the platform yet? (for the sake of the question, consider a large transaction to be something like a cryptopunk or a beeple or something else valued at 20+ ETH).
NFTTrader.io
As our V2 as mentioned is only a few weeks old we have not had that type of trade go through yet but has been requested by some users. The day that it happens will be thrilling for our team. The biggest trade so far included 3 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, 1 Bored Ape Kennel Club NFT, and 1.4 ETH. Calculating the current values for this trade would be about 15 ETH worth which we think is pretty big for the one trade and by only being a few weeks old, a milestone we would like to share is in just one day we had an NFT + ETH trading volume totaling to ≈ $71,000 USD.
NFT Culture
Have you done a 3rd party security audit on the BatchSwap contract, or if not, are you considering doing one?
NFTTrader.io
We have done all the unit tests internally and thanks to being part of the current KERNEL Gitcoin project we will soon have a 3rd security pre-audit ready to share.
NFT Culture
How does NFT Trader compare to the other prominent secure trading platform, SudoSwap?
NFTTrader.io
There are a few key things which we think really distinguishes us from them. First, coming from the feedback and comments we have been receiving, users applaud our UX and UI. They say it is very inviting and the flow to trade NFTs is very smooth. Second, the reason we designed our trading protocol the way that it is, is because there is a whole gamification system planned in our development roadmap. As we grow you will see more utility features for our NFTs and other unique tools released that will gamify the trading to make it more entertaining for users. Our cute Trader Squad NFTs have already set the stage for what’s to come and as previously mentioned the first utility for these NFTs is that they offer any owner the unlimited removal of our flat trading fee whenever using the protocol.
NFT Culture
What is next for NFTTrader?
NFTTrader.io
At present we are focused on optimizing all the functionality available on the platform, making it an even better flow for users when trading NFTs and community growth. Following this, we are looking into the integration of some new chains, continuous gamification and a few other surprises which we cannot mention right now.
NFT Culture
Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
NFTTrader.io
We would like to thank all our supporters and NFT traders so far and welcome anyone who is looking for a secure platform to trade their NFTs. We are always open to collabs and partnerships as we feel that working together we can foster the growth of the NFT industry in a positive direction more effectively!
A big thanks to the NFTTrader.io team for taking the time to answer the questions in this interview, and thank you for the hard work and dedication to the NFT space!
If there are any readers with follow up questions for the NFTTrader.io team, join our discord and let us know.
For more information about NFTTrader.io, Visit:
Website: https://www.nfttrader.io/
Discord: https://discord.gg/FwCnsEEENv
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NftTrader
Medium: https://nfttrader.medium.com/