OpenSea, in collaboration with the Seaport Working Group, has rolled out Seaport 1.6, the latest iteration of the NFT marketplace protocol designed for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystem.
A notable addition in this upgrade is the introduction of ‘Seaport hooks,’ inspired by Uniswap v4 hooks. These hooks serve as order fulfillment plugins, facilitating the development of applications aimed at enhancing the utility and liquidity of NFTs within the Seaport protocol.
Seaport 1.6 incorporates the latest Ethereum Dencun update, resulting in a 5% reduction in gas fees for select transactions compared to its predecessor, Seaport 1.5. This enhancement is already operational on major EVM chains.
The Seaport hooks feature enables seamless deployment and invocation of contracts by Seaport, streamlining the order execution process. It allows NFT properties to dynamically adjust based on purchase conditions, such as price and volume, and facilitates transactions using specific currencies or other NFTs. Moreover, it supports the creation of bonding curves and price oracles for NFTs.
OpenSea plans to transition user orders to Seaport 1.6 without requiring user intervention by Monday, March 25. Subsequently, starting from Monday, April 1, only Seaport 1.6 orders will be accepted via the OpenSea Developer API, leading to the gradual phasing out of Seaport 1.5.
Furthermore, the integration of Seaport hooks is expected to enable NFT sales to tap into liquidity from various on-chain sources, enhancing DeFi and NFT interoperability. This integration opens up possibilities such as implementing time-weighted average price (TWAP) oracles for the NFT sector.
OpenSea emphasized that the Seaport ecosystem and hooks serve as an invitation to the developer and creator community to innovate and expand the capabilities of NFTs, aiming to surface native experiences.
This update arrives amid a decline in the NFT market’s activity. As per data from Cryptoslam on March 6, OpenSea, once a leading NFT marketplace, now ranks fourth. Additionally, the average price of digital collectibles on OpenSea has dropped significantly, reflecting broader trends in the Ethereum NFT market.