LooksRare NFT Marketplace Review | The Ascent by Motley Fool
The LooksRare platform doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. Its main attraction is that it is community driven and rewards users for activity on the system. But it’s not super easy to use, offers limited payment methods, and only works with the Ethereum blockchain.
Services
LooksRare is a simple NFT marketplace. Here’s what you can and can’t do on the platform:
READ MORE: Best NFT Marketplaces
LooksRare says it is a community-driven project that uses its native LOOKS token to pay rewards to the people who use the platform. For example, LOOKS stakers receive a share of all trading fees.
Blockchains
Unlike other top NFT marketplaces, LooksRare uses only Ethereum (ETH)style=”text-decoration: underline”> blockchain. Many NFTs are built on Ethereum, so this will not have a big impact on the number of NFTs available. It does, however, affect gas taxes. Ethereum is by far the most expensive blockchain and the gas fees can push the price of your NFT activity up significantly.
Fees on other blockchains such as Polygon (MATIC), Solana (SOL) or Tezos (XTZ) are a fraction of those on Ethereum. Other NFT marketplaces, such as OpenSea or Rarible, allow users to trade on different blockchain networks, allowing for significant gas fee reductions.
Supported wallets
LooksRare supports the following crypto wallets:
- MetaMask
- WalletConnect
- Coinbase wallet
MetaMask and Coinbase are two of the biggest hot wallets on the market, while WalletConnect integrates with many different wallets and applications. As such, most NFT investors will likely be able to connect to LooksRare.
READ MORE: Best NFT Wallets
It would be good to see more crypto wallet options, especially cold storage options. Unlike hot wallets, cold wallets are not connected to the internet, so they are a more secure way to store digital assets.
Payment methods
LooksRare uses three cryptocurrencies: Ethereum (ETH), Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) and its own Looks token (LOOKS). The platform does not accept debit or credit cards. There is no way to pay with fiat currencies (traditional money like dollars) or stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC). If you need to buy ETH or WETH, check out our list of the best crypto apps.
If you are trying to buy an NFT at a fixed price, LooksRare accepts both ETH and WETH. However, if you want to make an offer for an item, you must use WETH. Without getting too technical, wrapped Ethereum is a tokenized version of Ethereum. Each WETH is worth one ETH, and WETH is easier to spend on some decentralized applications.
Fees
LooksRare takes a 2% direct fee on all NFT sales, paid in WETH. LooksRare fees are lower than other top NFT marketplaces which typically charge 2.5% or more. In addition to the 2% fee, you also have to pay a gas fee to register the transaction on the Ethereum network. Gas charges vary depending on how congested the network is.
It would be helpful for LooksRare to publish a transparent fees page that states how the fees work. Creators can set a royalty fee that is automatically sent to them when the item is sold.
