Frequently Asked Questions about ProtonSea (protonsea.com).
What is ProtonSea?
ProtonSea is an alternative NFT marketplace on Proton, a blockchain based on EOSIO and similar to WAX, but more user friendly to use. Technically speaking, ProtonSea is modified fork of the nft-demo created by Proton. Read more in this story. The original monsters nft-demo works only with one collection and one currency. ProtonSea features:
- support for multiple currencies (you can see some NFTs can be purchased with XPR, FOOBAR an of course the main currency: XUSDC)
- support for multiple collections: by putting the collection name in the URL you can see it (URL scheme is being changed to be similar to protonmarket)
- homepage with a selection of interesting or notable collections
- collection page:
- shows description and collection URL (if existing)
- shows creator fee (% that goes to the author for each sale) - NFT page:
- shows minted/edition size
- shows “0” editions with more accurate infinity ∞ symbol
When was ProtonSea created?
Officially, protonsea.com went online on March 26, 2021. Just one week after I discovered the Monsters nft-demo.
Why was ProtonSea created?
In a few words: just for fun (that’s also how Linux was born)! Before March 26th there was no marketplace to list your own NFTs. It was not clear if and when there would be one. I read some rumors/opinions that the Proton team may just let other developers create their own NFT marketplaces so I thought “let’s give it a try” and for several days and nights I invested all my free time to work on this project with great passion, it was like a “hackaton”. The website was working already (I have proof on blockchain of monsters sold for XUSDC, even for XPR), but I officially “launched” it on April 17th, 2021. A few days later (on March 22nd, 2021) the official marketplace was revealed (beta, link shared semi-privately).
Who is behind ProtonSea?
ProtonSea was created by CryptoTester, who is a husband, a father of a 3 years old child, a software engineer with many years of experience in web development, experienced in finance, a crypto enthusiast and working full time as a QA since 2020.
Who is helping ProtonSea?
I asked in the Dev Telegram chat a lot of questions and Syed gave me a lot of support, which I’m thankful to. Some people in various chats gave me insights and various suggestions and I thank them for that. Feedback is very important. A graphic designer and friend of mine (Andrea Varriale) also helped me by creating his first collection AV Pixel Cats which I proudly featured on ProtonSea on April 21st, 2021. See the AV Pixel Cats collection.
Is ProtonSea affiliated with Proton?
No, I’m independent and I do what pleases me. The Proton team members were really nice to help me in the Dev Telegram chat to solve many technical issues (I also helped them by submitting a few bugs I found while using their code), but ultimately they have their business and I have mine. We can collaborate of course. If Proton needs a QA or any kind of help I can give (please not purely a developer position, I still like to code, but I’d like to do something else), they can sure let me know.
Roadmap?
Because now the official marketplace is available at protonmarket.com, there is no real need of a copycat of that marketplace. Sure thing the actual protonmarket.com homepage doesn’t really help users to discover new interesting collections, thus I will continue to list new interesting collections when I find out about them.
I will also try to add other features not available in the official marketplace. I won’t reveal them here. Follow protonsea1 on Twitter to read when they will be announced.
Can I mint NFTs on ProtonSea?
No, you can create your collection and upload your NFTs using protonmarket.com then if you want to support my project you can delist your NFTs and list them via the protonsea.com, like this the market fees will go to ProtonSea instead of the Proton market. ProtonSea and Protonmarket shows NFTs listed in both markets so in the end it’s just a detail like deciding which “referral” you wanna use.
Can you feature/list my collection?
Feel free follow me and then DM me on Twitter if you have a well curated collection that you think deserves the public’s attention. I may accept to list it or not at my discretion without giving any reason. If I ignore your request, I’m sorry, I have little time and one reason may be simply that I didn’t read your message, had no time to answer it or did not consider (yet) your collection interesting enough. If that’s the case, don’t take it personal but try to improve your collection or make a better one.
Is there a way to see all collections created so far?
Yes, check them out at https://chaos.protonsea.com/ the navigation of the site is not the best (a button to go to the previous page is missing) but it does the job. You can discover a new collection, connect the wallet and buy their NFTs. The website works exactly like the main one at https://protonsea.com
Why “chaos”? Because (especially at the beginning, when I was creating the new homepage to show the collections) there are many test collections, empty collections, duplicate collections, duplicate NFT templates etc. which to me is a big mess, thus “chaos”. No offense, but honestly I wondered why the Proton devs didn’t just do their tests on testnet. Most of the cool template IDs are used by test(some number) and various “fsjal family” NFTs lol. I’m happy that the collection that changed my life (Monsters) has cool template IDs from nr 1 to 10, and my remix, the Lite Monsters collection (with rarer NFTs ranging from 10 for the “Demure Dullahan” to 100 for the “Cautious Cerberus”) has good consequent numbers from 11 to 20! This was an achievement.
I’m new to Proton, how to get XUSDC etc.?
Check this article.
Is it safe to use ProtonSea?
ProtonSea is based on the nft-demo source code. You can run it on your computer, connect the wallet, use it locally, test it, see how it works. ProtonSea is using the same mechanism to authenticate and to sign transactions etc. If you are familiar with other blockchain systems like MetaMask you should know that you are in control of what happens as you must approve and sign any transaction via your wallet. If the website you connected your wallet to is trying to do something fishy, you can see that in your wallet, when you are prompted to confirm a transaction. E.g. if you are buying an NFT for 1 XUSDC, but you see that you are requested to approve a 100 XUSDC transaction, that may mean that the site is trying to scam you (or you didn’t see that you clicked to buy an NFT listed for 100 XUSDC and you wrongly clicked that instead of the 1 XUSDC version… everything can happen, before calling someone a scammer please double, triple check and make a video add/or screenshots as proof, a video is better as it shows the steps you did to reproduce a certain situation, maybe you found a bug). It’s up to you to control every transaction before giving it your “final OK”. In crypto there is a saying: do not trust, verify. Always double check what a transaction is trying to do, before approving it in your wallet. In doubt take a screenshot, cancel the transaction, seek for support and help. Also be careful, because in telegram sometimes you ask for support and some dodgy people (if you check their telegram profile, often they do not have a username set) DM you pretending to give you support. Official team members never DM you like that. Just block them and report them in the telegram group.
Is there a ProtonSea Telegram group or Discord server?
Official ProtonSea Announcements: https://t.me/protonseaann
Official ProtonSea Group: https://t.me/protonsea
What is the “creator fee”
Each collection has a creator fee. When you sell an NFT belonging to this collection, this percent set in the creator fee goes to the author of the collection. It’s a kind of royalties system, so e.g. if the creator fee is 1%, when you sell an NFT for 100 XUSD, 1 XUSD will go to the author of the collection.
What’s the difference between “minted” and “edition size”?
The edition size is the maximum supply (max supply) and it’s the maximum amount of NFTs that can be created from a specific NFT template. Minting means creating NFT(s). If the edition size is 100, only 100 NFTs can be minted. An author can mint a few from time to time or mint them all at once. Since it costs money to mint NFTs, some authors prefer to mint a few, sell them and with the gains mint more. There can be different reasons to proceed in a way or another. Then another story is to put minted NFTs for sale or drop them from time to time. Again, there can be different strategies to proceed in a way or another.
