GM frens,

Private marketplaces are on the rise in the Web3 World, and in today's edition of The Ground Floor we will be breaking down PROOF's private marketplace ~ Pudding.xyz

The PROOF Private Marketplace

Breaking down the launch of a PROOF private marketplace...

Earlier this week, PROOF announced a partnership with Mobo.xyz to to build Pudding.xyz — a private marketplace that supports all PROOF eco-system NFTs. 

The Value of Pudding.xyz

The core value proposition of Pudding.xyz is a single source to discover every NFT in the ever expanding PROOF eco-system.

While such a platform would undoubtedly benefit buyers who are seeking to purchase NFTs in the PROOF eco-system, Pudding.xyz is also enticing sellers to list items on their marketplace by offering 0% listing fees compared to OpenSea's 2.5% take rate.

What Else Are They Offering?

In a world where marketplaces such as Blur are offering 0% creator royalties which amount to 5% of the total value of the transaction to purchase a PROOF NFT, eliminating listing fees still requires people to pay more to purchase an NFT on Pudding.xyz.

As such, the key question is - what else is Pudding offering?The answer = curation.

To help buyers navigate the complex process of purchasing the right NFT, Pudding.xyz is seeking to differentiate itself from its competitors by solidifying itself as the single source of information to understand the stories of the artists in the PROOF eco-system as seen below:

Building For The Birds

One of the primary advantages of a custom build marketplace is building custom features that would only make sense for the collection(s) in question.

Focusing on PROOF, Moonbirds is PROOF's utility focused profile picture collection launched in April 2022 & are the second most valuable assets in the PROOF eco-system.

To incentivise buyers to hold their birds as opposed to selling them, PROOF implemented their own version of staking called "nesting" in April whereby token holders are rewarded with items based on the duration of time they have staked their bird.

Unfortunately, OpenSea and every other major marketplace doesn't provide buyers with the nesting status of the Moonbirds that are for sale, however, Pudding.xyz has already confirmed that buyers will be able to access this info on their website.

Based on our research this feature has been made exclusively available to Pudding.xyz — in the case of other marketplaces, listing a Moonbird results in the Moonbird being removed from its nest which doesn't appear to be the case based on the following footage:

Looking Forward...

PROOF isn't the first project to support a private marketplace for its collection — rather it's part of a growing group of projects that are opting to remove their reliance on OpenSea and other marketplaces that currently capture a percentage of every transaction.

Today, it's unclear how such fragmentation will benefit NFT collectors who have to date benefited from the existence of a single source to purchase NFTs (OpenSea) in the form of a larger number of listings for buyers and the best source of liquidity for sellers.

Nonetheless, in a world where an increasing number of NFT marketplaces such as Blurr aren't seeking to honor creator royalties — the continued investment in private marketplaces by Web3 projects looks inevitable.

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See you next time! — OB1