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    NFTs

    An OpenSea Offer Is Not a Sale Until You Accept It.

    Published September 30, 2026

    An OpenSea offer is a proposed price, not a completed sale. Listing, WETH wrapping, and collection offers work differently.

    An OpenSea Offer Is Not a Sale Until You Accept It.

    An offer on your NFT is a proposed price. It is not a completed sale. You can also make an offer without owning the item. The token stays with the current owner until that owner accepts.

    OpenSea’s sell guide, dated July 17, 2025, names two main ways to sell an item you own: create a listing, or accept an offer. The offer becomes a sale only after the owner accepts it.

    A listing and an offer are different actions

    A listing is the seller’s asking price. OpenSea’s July 17, 2025 page says the seller chooses how long the listing lasts, from 15 minutes to 6 months. A buyer can then use Buy now at that listed price.

    An offer runs the other direction. The buyer proposes a price. The seller can accept it from the item page or from a profile, and OpenSea says the seller can review the proceeds before accepting.

    OpenSea’s offer guide, dated September 3, 2025, says to click Make offer, enter an amount, and choose a duration. The default expiration is 30 days. The maximum is 6 months. The minimum offer amount is 0.0001 ETH. If creator earnings are optional but specified for the collection, the buyer can choose whether to include them. That choice is made at offer time. It is not a guaranteed cut of later sales.

    The same page says to click Review item offer and sign the relevant transactions in your wallet. Active offers linked to your wallet appear on the Offers tab of your profile. By default, you do not have to pay gas to cancel an offer.

    Wrapping ETH is not a purchase

    OpenSea’s WETH page, dated November 13, 2025, uses the Ethereum blockchain as an example. Any offer you make requires wrapped funds for the blockchain that the NFT is on. Wrapped Ether, or WETH, is used to make offers on Ethereum.

    OpenSea says WETH allows users to make pre-authorized bids that can be fulfilled later without any further action from the bidder. WETH is minted when a user sends ETH to the WETH decentralized, open-source smart contract. That contract holds the ETH and mints an equivalent amount of WETH. OpenSea does not mint WETH, does not exchange ETH for WETH, and does not operate or control the WETH smart contract.

    OpenSea’s wrap steps are: open the wallet balance, select Swap, enter the amount, then Confirm. You then confirm a third-party smart-contract transaction that involves a gas fee. The September 3, 2025 offer page adds that a first-time purchase with a currency such as WETH may require a one-off gas fee to allow the wallet to buy with that currency. Wrapping ETH still leaves the NFT with the current owner until an offer is accepted.

    A collection offer can fill with any item in the set

    OpenSea’s collection-offer page, dated July 27, 2026, is for buyers who want an NFT from a collection but do not have a specific item in mind. One offer applies to all NFTs in the collection. A collection offer can be accepted only once. After an owner accepts it, OpenSea says it expires for all other NFTs in the collection.

    For some collections, you can select up to two traits. The offer is sent for NFTs that have the trait at the time of the offer. OpenSea says those traits may change after the offer is sent. If no trait is selected, the offer is sent for all NFTs in the collection.

    Ethereum collection offers need WETH. Offers on other chains need that chain’s wrapped native token. When you place a collection offer, OpenSea says you pre-authorize WETH for the offer amount. No funds are moved until a seller accepts. After a seller accepts, the purchase is final.

    You can increase the quantity so more than one collection offer can be accepted separately. Duration matches other offers: 30 days by default, 6 months at most. Collection offers are not valid for NFTs disabled for suspicious activity. Unfunded offers appear on the Offers tab and become active again if you add sufficient wrapped funds. By default, canceling a collection offer does not require gas.

    Who pays gas, and who does not

    OpenSea’s fees page, dated May 12, 2026, says OpenSea typically charges a 1% fee for selling NFTs, included in the price displayed to buyers; a 10% fee for minting an NFT in a primary drop; and 0% for Swaps, though third-party provider fees may still apply. Private listings typically carry a 0% OpenSea fee at this time. Prices are subject to change. Fees are set at the time a listing or an offer is created. Wrapping, unwrapping, or sending funds from your wallet does not incur an OpenSea fee. OpenSea says it never has custody or control of your wallet assets.

    Gas fees are paid to blockchain validators, not to OpenSea. The May 12, 2026 page says sellers pay gas when listing an NFT for the first time, or when accepting an offer. Buyers pay gas when purchasing NFTs through OpenSea. Transferring an NFT to another wallet incurs a gas fee. OpenSea’s June 16, 2025 gas page matches that split for fixed-price buys and accepted offers. The first time you list an NFT in a collection, you may be prompted to approve the collection, which costs gas. Later listings for items in those collections can be gas-free. OpenSea says it will never ask you to send funds to a private wallet address to cover gas fees. The fee is paid through your wallet’s normal confirmation prompt.

    A buyer message about a failed purchase is a known scam pattern

    The July 17, 2025 sell page, the May 12, 2026 fees page, and the June 16, 2025 gas page all warn about a common phishing attempt. People posing as buyers may claim they hit an error when trying to purchase an item and then message the seller with screenshots.

    OpenSea says it will never ask you to send funds in order to sell an item or resolve a transaction failure. The gas page adds that OpenSea will never DM you first on social media or ask you to send funds to OpenSea for those reasons. This is OpenSea’s published warning. It is not a report of a new incident.

    What remains unknown

    OpenSea can change fees, durations, and on-screen labels. CryptoWorkPro has not watched a specific live offer fill for this article. A trait-filtered collection offer can fill with a different item than the one a buyer was looking at. The WETH description above comes from OpenSea’s help page, not from an independent audit of that contract. Canceling an offer is not the same as revoking an old marketplace approval.

    Sources

    Disclosure: This is informational coverage of OpenSea help pages dated 2025 and 2026. Fee percentages, offer screens, and gas rules can change, and a generated illustration is not a photograph of a real sale. This article is not financial, legal, or investment advice. AI-assisted research and writing. Cited sources, not AI alone, support the claims.