It’s always been our goal to connect people with NFTs across every chain possible. OpenSea now offers cross-blockchain compatibility across the Ethereum, Polygon, Klaytn, Solana, and Arbitrum blockchains.
This guide briefly explains the differences between them.
Ethereum
Official Website: ethereum.org
Token: ETH
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality launched in 2015.
Ether is the native currency of the Ethereum network and it’s commonly abbreviated to ETH, which is its ticker symbol. Ethereum uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, eliminating the need for energy-intensive mining and instead securing the network using staked ETH. In Ethereum, new transactions get added in "blocks" every 12 seconds. Validators are a built-in mechanism of the Ethereum blockchain and get paid in ETH.
ETH is used to pay transaction fees (known as gas fees) on the Ethereum blockchain. OpenSea has no say in setting gas fees - they are determined by network capacity and demand and fluctuate according to network usage.
Polygon
Official Website: polygon.technology
Token: MATIC
Polygon is an EVM-compatible blockchain that provides scalable, secure, and instant transactions with currencies like ETH, USDC, MATIC, and DAI.
As one of the first scaling solutions for Ethereum, cryptocurrencies must be "bridged" from Ethereum's blockchain to Polygon. Think of Polygon as a sibling to Ethereum, the currencies are similar, but the two blockchains have slight differences.
Klaytn
Official Website: www.klaytn.foundation
Token: KLAY
Klaytn is an open-source public blockchain project, built to be the fundamental trust layer for the metaverse, respecting and empowering the participation and contribution of its community and stakeholders. Users can use the Kaikas wallet browser extension to buy and sell Klaytn NFTs on OpenSea.
- EVM-based dApp deployment and execution on top of a PoS model that holds 1-second block finality and an elevated TPS environment
- A comprehensive package of open source tooling and supportive ecosystem to make building for the metaverse easier than ever, including: L2 (service chain) solutions, wallets and account management, SDKs, interoperability tools, DAO governance tools, and more.
Solana
Official Website: https://solana.com/
Token: SOL
Solana is a high-speed and low-cost blockchain with low environmental impact. Solana’s performance is driven by a single global state, which is capable of processing tens of thousands of smart contracts at once, and by Proof of History, a distributed clock that unlocks low-latency, sub-second finality across the global state.
You can learn more about Solana here.
Arbitrum
Official website: https://bridge.arbitrum.io/
Token: Arbi ETH
Arbitrum is a type of technology known as an “optimistic rollup,” which is a blockchain that takes advantage of the consensus mechanism of its parent chain—in this case, Ethereum.
Optimistic rollups have many advantages, including rapid and inexpensive transactions and the decentralization and security guarantees provided by Ethereum as a reliable L1 foundation.
Arbitrum was created with Ethereum compatibility as a top priority, meaning users can interact with Arbitrum using standard Ethereum wallets, and developers can build and deploy contracts with standard Ethereum libraries and tooling.
OpenSea is compatible with the Arbitrum chain Arbitrum One, the first permissionless Ethereum layer 2 rollup with full Ethereum smart contract functionality.