OpenSea, an NFT marketplace, has partnered with Australian blockchain firm Immutable to offer free NFT token creation. Creators will not need to spend the upfront fee required to mint NFTs (known as ‘Gas’ in blockchain terminology) on the Ethereum blockchain (reported to be around USD 150+).

The company will utilize Immutable X, a gas-free layer-2 protocol for Ethereum NFTs developed by Immutable. This provides instant trade confirmation, increased scalability of 9,000+ transactions per second (TPS), and zero gas fees for creators without compromising their security or custody.

Founded in 2017, OpenSea offers an Ethereum-based online marketplace for crypto collectibles and NFTs, including assets using the interoperable standards ERC-721 and ERC-1155. The company claims to be the first and largest NFT marketplace where users can buy, sell, and discover rare digital items such as Gods Unchained Cards, ENS names, CryptoKitties, and Decentraland land. In February 2021, the company announced its support for more efficient, Tezos-based NFTs. The company reported that in the six months of September 2020 to February 2021, transaction volume grew by more than 100x, with the daily transaction volume reaching USD 10 million in March 2021. As of March 2021, the platform has more than 20 million NFTs.