OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace in terms of volumes, has finally made its stance clear on the NFT royalty debate by introducing its royalty enforcement tool.
So far, OpenSea, which commands over 60% market share, maintained silence on the royalty issue, while competing platforms have gradually shifted towards an optional royalty model in recent weeks.
The new tool will help in enforcing creator fees or royalties by providing a code that would blacklist marketplaces that don’t enforce royalties, such as X2Y2 and Blur. These marketplaces have taken away significant market share from OpenSea by attracting traders with their zero-royalty model.
“It’s clear that many creators want the ability to enforce fees on-chain; and fundamentally, we believe that the choice should be theirs to make – it shouldn’t be a decision made for them by marketplaces,” wrote Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea, in a blog post.
“Make no mistake, technical decisions like this involve trade-offs: enforcing creator fees on-chain requires sacrificing some of the censorship-resistance and permissionless nature of NFTs.”
Finzer also said royalties will be enforced for new collections that use an on-chain enforcement tool, and no changes will be made for existing collections until at least Dec. 8.
The code that is required to be added to a new contract has been made available on a template GitHub repo.
According to the blog post, OpenSea won’t enforce royalties for new collections that choose not to implement the on-chain enforcement.
The community had mixed reactions to the news. Wab.eth, creator of the Sappy Seals NFT collection, supported the move.
Betty, co-founder of the Deadfellaz NFT collection, suggested that there might be a lack of clear communication from OpenSea.
LooksRare along with Solana’s Magic Eden are a few of the NFT marketplaces that have recently moved towards a zero-royalty model.
