OpenSea has been the OG NFT marketplace for a while now. In fact, despite some major concerns shared by some of its users, for many, OpenSea’s position in the market was unlikely to be usurped.

Until recently.

January saw the launch of LooksRare, and the space hasn’t been the same since. In fact, soon after its launch, LooksRare was in the news after it overtook, repeatedly, the OG’s daily volume. This status quo was maintained consistently from 12 January to 11 February.

Source: Dune Analytics

Needless to say, such evidence is likely to fuel speculations that OpenSea’s time in the sun may be done. Maybe. Maybe not. What is clear, alas, is that OpenSea isn’t sitting still. In fact, according to reports, it’s working towards integrating Solana-based NFTs plus Phantom wallet support.

However, that would be digressing from the point because it is time to look at LooksRare more closely. Over the past few weeks, a lot has been claimed about the new upstart. Now, we won’t expand on all that here, but check out what’s been written about the allegations of wash trading against it, for instance.

On the ecosystem front, LooksRare was in the news recently after it went through with Phase 2. Under the same, LOOKS rewards, both for trading and staking, have been reduced by over 50%. Thanks to the same, there are now fewer LOOKS in circulation. Furthermore, some LOOKS will be reallocated towards long-term Uniswap V3 liquidity. The next rewards halving is scheduled for less than 90 days.

How is LooksRare coping then? Well, it hasn’t been the best of times if certain datasets are taken into consideration. Especially when juxtaposed against the numbers seen in January. The same was the subject of the latest Santiment Insights report.

In the days