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Is it convenient to buy an NFT from a collection not verified by OpenSea?

OpenSea is the most popular marketplace in the NFT market where thousands of artists, designers and design studios who are hired to launch projects backed by significant funding, mint their NFTs to put them up for sale. Given the overwhelming number of publications, it is common for us to find collections of NFTs that are copies of an original collection or correspond to a crude imitation of a recognized collection on the market. To avoid falling into these traps OpenSea has a user account verification program and NFT collections with badges.

It should be noted that a collection of NFTs refers to a set of NFTs that refer to the same theme. When we buy an NFT on OpenSea it is always linked to a collection that can contain 1 or more NFTs. In general, the collections that can be considered attractive are usually at least 20 NFTs and we can find collections of up to 1,000 or more, as is the case of the popular "Bored Ape Yacht Club" collection that contains 10,000 NFTs.

Regarding the user accounts, we will mark a differentiation that is very important to consider. An NFT is associated with a “Creator” user account and another “Owner” user account. The creator is the one who minted the NFTs on the platform and put them up for sale or simply exhibited and/or transferred them. Instead, the “Owner” is the one who has purchased or received that NFT by transfer and is therefore the current owner of this digital asset. Clearly, an NFT can be associated with the same "Creator" and "Owner" account at the same time, since when the creator mints the NFT, he becomes its owner. When the creator sells it or transfers it to another user account, he continues to be the creator and will be in perpetuity, but he is no longer the owner and the only right the creator has over that NFT is that each time its new owners re-sell will receive a royalty fee for copyright.

Having said that, below we detail the two types of verification that OpenSea offers:

• Verification of user accounts
  As we already mentioned, all the collections and NFTs published for sale on OpenSea are linked to a “Creator” user account and another “Owner” user account. We are interested in looking at the verification of the user account "Creator" of the NFT before buying it, this verification is displayed today with a blue check mark in the user account profile and assures us of the authenticity and veracity of the same according to OpenSea's discretion.
• Collections of NFTs with badges
  An NFT published in OpenSea always belongs to a collection. If the collection is verified by OpenSea, we will find a blue badge near where its name appears. This badge is near the collection name, not in the NFT. Unlike user accounts, for a collection to have this badge, in addition to guaranteeing its authenticity (it is not a copy, it is not an imitation), it must have a purchase/sale volume with a floor of 100 Ethereum, that is, 120 thousand US dollars today.

In short, buying an NFT that contains both verifications by OpenSea exempts us from falling into a scam, copy or imitation, concluding an operation without risk and adding a certain degree of liquidity that is deduced from the collection badge for meeting a high volume of commercialization.

But the truth is that there are many artists and creators who have been waiting for months for the verification of their user accounts that OpenSea has not yet granted them due to the difficult and tough process they have to go through to get their first verification. And if we refer to obtaining the badge of the collection, that is, double verification, it is a daunting and almost impossible task for any talent or creator who is just taking their first steps in this market. Until now, those who have obtained verification of creator user accounts are recognized artists, celebrities and/or brands of recognized companies, and very few for the rest of the regular users. In addition, only those collections of NFTs that are backed by strong funding to promote the project, both in social networks and in communities, manage to obtain the minimum trading volume of 100 Ethereum to access the second OpenSea badge.

Due to the above, in general, NFTs that have double verification (creator user and collection) have very high costs, which is why they are difficult to access for small and medium-sized investors, mainly due to their demand and scarcity, and they also do not guarantee a profit. in the medium or long term since they ultimately depend on the market and not on OpenSea's ratings.

Having described the landscape and going back to the title of the article, we said that the answer to whether it is convenient to buy an NFT from a collection not verified by OpenSea could be “yes” depending on the care we take. During the process of purchasing an NFT, if the collection does not contain the verification badge, OpenSea shows us the following warning:

"This is an unreviewed collection." "Review the following information to ensure the purchase" showing the username of the creator of the collection, the total sales, the total traded volume of the collection and the social networks linked to the creator.

This is where you should do your own research with this information that OpenSea provides. We are going to highlight the positive and negative aspects that this operation can provide us:

Positives:

• The user "Creator", in this case "Saso-Romano" has registered in January 2022. In "social links" we notice that he has a website where we can learn more about him
• The image on your OpenSea profile matches the one on your website
• Haciendo una breve investigación utilizando las herramientas de búsqueda de OpenSea notamos que la colección no es una imitación ni una copia de alguna colección y/o NFT existente en el mercado
• The price is very accessible and observing the NFTs of the collection our opinion is that we believe it has potential

Negatives

• Clearly the user "Creator" is not verified nor does the collection contain the badge granted by OpenSea, the cause of the warning before making the purchase
• The collection has no sales yet
• At the time of writing this article, the creator and the collection do not have a community behind them that follows them such as Twitter, Discord and/or Instagram (read our recommended article: Authority and Community make investing in NFTs attractive)

With these data in view, we have the decision to make or not the purchase, it depends on the risks that we are willing to assume. In this case, in addition to the positive aspects, we assume that the creator could develop the aspects of authority and community, if so, without a doubt, his NFTs would be re-valued since there would be a community behind that would begin to be interested in them. There is also the possibility that OpenSea grants the creator user verification and if the collection begins to move commercially, perhaps in a few years it would reach the volume of 100 Ethereum to obtain the badge.

The risk is important, but the higher the risk, the higher the reward if we are right. Taking into account an accessible price and other characteristics mentioned, if our projection materializes, the profits will be exponential. This example is not an investment recommendation, we are simply making a hypothetical case about all the issues to consider when buying an NFT. The decision and the applied criteria is personal, here we share our knowledge and give examples and indications to help you in the purchase process and detect opportunities.

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