The legacy non-fungible token market will be retired on April 13, 2023.
Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace LooksRare has upgraded to version 2, reducing fees by 75% and implementing several other features, according to an April 6 announcement from the company.
The LooksRare version 1 platform charges a 2% fee per transaction. This has been reduced to 0.5% in version 2. Additionally, v2 features a more energy-efficient contract, allowing users to save approximately 30% on gas fees compared to previous versions of the application.
The company explains that in version 2, sellers receive ether
Instead of Wrapped Ether (WETH), which is used for most sales, smart contracts allow for bulk buy and sell orders if a user wants to conduct multiple transactions simultaneously. Additionally, aggregators can now implement custom recipients, allowing users to purchase NFTs using one wallet and then send them to another wallet.
Sellers can also list their NFTs for sale in token prices instead of ETH, including a fixed USD price paid in equivalent ETH.
The team said in another post on April 7 that LooksRare v1 will be deprecated. On April 12, the app’s front-end will no longer allow users to publish version 1 auctions through the public API. All current v1 auctions will be removed from the site on April 13th at 10:00am UTC, and the smart contracts themselves will be disabled via an administrative function at 11:00am UTC.
Reaction to the announcement has been mostly positive, as many LooksRare users believe the new features will pose a strong challenge to rivals like OpenSea and Blur.
But not everyone is convinced that LooksRare v2 will be enough to attract users from other platforms. Some users said that v2 still failed to provide good token incentives or allow enough collectibles to be listed.
LooksRare encountered some controversy when it decided to eliminate creator royalties in October. However, it has also benefited from the recent surge in NFT prices.
