APENFT marketplace, now AINFT Market: an honest review

APENFT Asia editorial team · Fact-checked against official sources

What the APENFT marketplace is

APENFT started with a simple pitch: put world-class art on the blockchain. The foundation behind it, registered in Singapore, collected high-profile works by Picasso, Warhol, Beeple and Pak and minted NFTs for several of them on TRON. A marketplace was the natural next step, a place where those tokenised works and new collections could be listed, bought and sold.

The APENFT Marketplace launched on mainnet on 15 April 2022 during a livestream with Justin Sun. It was promoted as the first official NFT marketplace on TRON, after a developer testnet sprint ahead of launch. The project’s own white paper later claimed more than US$10 million in cumulative volume and more than two million NFT assets on the platform. Those are the project’s figures and have not been independently verified.

When APENFT rebranded to AINFT and shifted its focus towards AI infrastructure, the marketplace moved with it. It now runs at marketplace.ainft.com under the title “AINFT Market”. The same app is also served at nftpump.meme, the address of the NFT Pump launchpad. For background on the rebrand and what it means for token holders, see our AINFT rebrand explainer.

Current name

AINFT Market

Official URL

marketplace.ainft.com

Original domain

apenft.io

Mainnet launch

April 2022

Main chain

TRON (TRC-721)

Also reported

Ethereum, BNB Chain

Related launchpad

NFT Pump (nftpump.meme)

Features, chains and fees

The core idea is the same as on any NFT exchange: connect a wallet, browse collections, buy listed items and list your own. Its distinctive selling point at launch was cost. TRON transactions are cheap compared with Ethereum, and the launch announcement promised zero initial transaction fees and gas under one dollar. The white paper adds a gas-fee subsidy covering up to 90% of costs.

What we cannot confirm is the current fee schedule. The marketplace was unreachable from our research location when we tried to read its terms, and we found no recent official fee table. Treat the launch-era numbers as history, not as a promise, and read the fee breakdown each listing shows before you sign anything.

On chains, TRON is the native home. Items there use TRC-721, TRON’s equivalent of Ethereum’s ERC-721 standard. Secondary sources report Ethereum and BNB Chain support too, which matters if you hold NFTs bought elsewhere. If you want to understand how TRC-721 and the newer multi-token TRC-1155 standard compare, read our guide to TRON NFT standards.

NFT Pump and TRC-404

In 2024 the team added NFT Pump, a launchpad that combines the TRC-404 format with “pump”-style bonding-curve pricing. In plain terms, it lets creators launch collections whose price rises automatically as more items are bought. Justin Sun said NFT Pump trading fees would be used to buy back and burn NFT tokens. NFT Pump and the AINFT Market now share the same app.

How active is the marketplace today?

This is the part most reviews skip. A marketplace is only useful if buyers and sellers show up, and here the numbers are sobering. A Protos report published after the rebrand found that the platform averaged about US$6 of trading volume per day. The same report noted that several AI products from the AINFT roadmap had not launched at that point.

The gap between the historical claims and current activity tells you a lot. The broader NFT market cooled sharply after its peak, and the project’s own focus moved to AI. For you as a user, the practical consequences are:

• Selling is hard. With so few active buyers, a listed item may sit unsold for a long time, or sell far below what you paid.
• Prices are unreliable. In a thin market, a single trade can set a “floor price” that means little.
• Support and updates may be limited. A low-traffic product rarely gets priority.

None of this means the marketplace is a scam. It means it is a quiet place, and you should act accordingly.

How to buy an NFT artwork on the APENFT marketplace

If you still want to buy, the process is straightforward. These steps assume a TRON item, which covers most of the marketplace.

Selling or listing an NFT

Selling works in reverse. Connect your wallet, open the item in your profile, choose a fixed price or accept an existing offer, then sign. The first time you list from a collection, the marketplace usually asks for an approval so it can transfer the item when a buyer pays. Each step is a smart-contract call that uses Energy, so keep TRX in the wallet.

Be realistic about pricing. In a market with very little volume, the last sale price may be months old. Look at active offers rather than past sales, and decide in advance the minimum you would accept. If you change your mind, cancel the listing on-chain rather than just leaving it, so an old low price cannot be filled later.

Pros and cons of the APENFT marketplace

Other NFT marketplaces on TRON

The APENFT marketplace is not the only option for TRON NFTs, though the field is small.

Kraftly is the most established independent alternative and lists well-known TRON collections such as TPunks, the 10,000-piece collection whose #3442 “Joker” sold for 120 million TRX. NFTOne was an early TRC-721 marketplace, but its site currently shows only a coming-soon page. For a broader, curated list of TRON NFT collections, games and tools, browse our TRON NFT directory, and for games specifically see GameFi on TRON.

How to judge an item on a quiet market

When volume is this low, the usual signals of “hot” collections do not work, so you need your own checklist. Before buying anything on the APENFT marketplace, or on any small TRON marketplace, run through these questions.

• Who made it, and can you verify that? Look for the creator’s own website or social account linking to the exact collection contract. A famous name in the title proves nothing.
• How many real holders does the collection have? A few hundred unique wallets is a very different story from a dozen addresses passing items back and forth.
• When was the last genuine sale? If the most recent trade happened long ago, assume you may need just as long to find a buyer.
• Where is the image and metadata stored? NFTs that point to decentralised storage are more durable than ones relying on a single web server. APENFT historically used BitTorrent File System for its art data.
• Can you afford to hold it indefinitely? If the answer is no, the purchase is speculation, not collecting.

If an item passes this test and you simply like it, buying is a reasonable choice. If it fails on several points, keep your TRX.

The marketplace and the art collection

Part of the marketplace’s appeal was its link to the APENFT art collection. Among other works, Picasso’s Femme nue couchée au collier exists as an NFT on a TRON TRC-721 contract, and the foundation’s collection includes works by Beeple and Pak. Some of these pieces have a complicated story: the Warhol NFT was sold and the proceeds used for a token burn, and the Giacometti sculpture Le Nez became the subject of a legal dispute. Our digital art collection overview covers each work and what is known about it.

Owning an NFT linked to a famous artwork does not automatically give you rights to the physical piece. Always read what a specific token represents before buying.

Safety checklist

• Type URLs yourself and bookmark the real one.
• Use a separate wallet for NFT trading that holds only what you need.
• Read every wallet prompt; reject anything you do not understand.
• Verify collection contracts with the creator’s official channels.
• Review and revoke approvals regularly on Tronscan.

For a wider look at scams around the token and the ecosystem, read our guide to APENFT safety.

Verdict

The APENFT marketplace was an important milestone for TRON, the first official place to trade NFTs on the network, backed by a high-profile art collection and cheap transactions. As AINFT Market it still works, but it has become a quiet corner of the ecosystem, with daily volume a fraction of what its launch suggested.

Use it if you want a specific TRON item and are comfortable holding it for the long term. Do not buy expecting to flip quickly. And whatever you do, make sure you are on the official domain before you connect a wallet.