A new platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has just been launched: LooksRare (LOOKS). What does it bring more than the others? Is it just another “marketplace” among many others, or is it the future leader in NFT sales that will overtake OpenSea?
LooksRare: a new NFT platform
The year is off to a strong start in the non-fungible token (NFT) industry with the announcement of a new platform for selling NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain: LooksRare.
On January 10, 2022, LooksRare announced in a tweet the opening of its platform:
LooksRare NFT Marketplace Now Live!
$LOOKS airdrop claim open
⏰ Staking starts at block 13977012
Trading reward calculations start tomorrow– LooksRare – NFT Marketplace (@LooksRareNFT) January 10, 2022
What’s new compared to other platforms
LooksRare presents itself as the “community-first” NFT sales platform, i.e. centred around its users. It intends to position itself as an alternative to OpenSea, the current market leader in NFTs.
Its slogan is “By NFT People, For NFT people”.
LooksRare proposes to reward the platform’s users, creators and collectors, by paying the most active of them.
It also proposes to pay the entirety of the sales fees collected to the stakers of LOOKS, its own token. The stakers are the holders of the platform’s token who agree to lock them in order to support the network
A frontal attack on OpenSea
This launch of LooksRare was accompanied by an airdrop of its token, the LOOKS. 120 million LOOKS tokens were distributed in a few days.
This is in fact a “vampire attack” against the leading platform OpenSea.
A “vampire attack”, in the jargon of the blockchain industry, consists in organising the fall of a competitor’s sales and to make its users migrate by offering more attractive advantages.
Thus LooksRare proposed to OpenSea users who had exchanged more than 3 Ethers (ETH) in the last 6 months, to obtain free LOOKS tokens. At the time of writing, this token is already worth $4.60 and the APR (annual rate of return) is currently over 750%.
This attack was requested and anticipated for months by OpenSea’s detractors who wish to see a new, more decentralised leader of NFTs emerge. Indeed, for several months now, many OpenSea users have been demanding the issuance of a token and the decentralisation of part of the platform’s operations.
