Your guide to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Web 3.0

NFT marketplaces typically have restrictions on which cryptocurrencies can be used to purchase assets – but Uniswap’s NFT Marketplace has just launched a new feature that changes all that.

Uniswap NFT traders can now use any token on the Ethereum blockchain, such as stablecoins like USDC or Tether, or even a meme coin like Shiba Inu, to buy their NFTs through a simplified interface.

How does it work? According to the crypto startup, Uniswap’s new Universal Router contract finds “the most cost-effective route” to complete an exchange from any Ethereum-based token to the required token for the NFT sale (in most cases, Ethereum) and then pushes that crypto . to OpenSea’s Seaport protocol to complete the transaction.

Under the hood, Uniswap dramatically simplifies the NFT purchase process for those who may need to exchange one cryptocurrency for another before purchasing an NFT.

The firm also said it plans to support combined sums of several different cryptocurrencies for a single NFT sale soon, meaning if an NFT costs 1 ETH, a trader can buy it with a combination of USDC and Tether, or DAI and SHIB , or Uniswap’s native token UNI and Chainlink, for example.

What does this mean for NFT traders? The new tool is intended for existing Uniswap traders who exchange large amounts of tokens already on the platform. It can also help users juggle liquidity to lock in sales they want faster without having to manually exchange tokens themselves first. And for those concerned about the tax implications of NFT trading, one fewer transaction before an NFT purchase also means one less taxable event.

Since Uniswap bought NFT aggregator Genius last year and launched its NFT marketplace feature on the platform in November, it has seen less than 10,000 total transactions and approximately $7.6 million in total traded volume. It has approximately 16,600 total sellers and 5,400 total buyers, as of dashboard from Dune Analytics Data Scientist MarcoV.

Considering that the broader DeFi platform has nearly 4.8 million users in total, according to a Dune Analytics dashboardUniswap hasn’t exactly been able to bring their older users en masse to the new NFT product yet.

Uniswap’s latest advances on the NFT platform may improve the user experience, but it’s unclear whether it will be enough to drive traffic away from rivals like the Paradigm-backed Obscuritywhich offers symbolic incentives and airdrops for high-volume traders.

At the time of writing, Blur activity accounts for 80.6% of NFT’s market share by volume in the past week, while OpenSea takes around 14.5%. Uniswap’s NFT platform remains a small blip on the charts. It has yet to even enter the top 10 NFT marketplaces by total number of traders, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard.

When asked about comment on Blur and OpenSea‘s market dominance, Uniswap Labs told Decrypt via email that the products are “built to last.”

“NFTs are bringing new users to crypto and self-storage. That continues to be the case, which is why we launched an NFT aggregator – which has zero fees and is part of our efforts to develop products that are built to last .”