Today, February 17, 2023, OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace in the world, sent ripples through Web3. They made big changes to their creator royalty and fee structure without telling anyone, changes that would have a big impact on both collectors and creators who use the platform.
We’re making some big changes today:
— OpenSea (@opensea) February 17, 2023
1) OpenSea fee → 0% for a limited time
2) Moving to optional creator earnings (0.5% min) for all collections without on-chain enforcement (old & new)
3) Marketplaces with the same policies will not be blocked by the operator filter
The company recently put up a Twitter thread on their feed. In it, they said that the 2.5 percent fee that is added to every OpenSea transaction will be taken away for a limited time. Still, the announcements kept coming. After the company announced a controversial strategy in November, the marketplace said it will move projects that don’t use on-chain enforcement mechanisms, which is almost every project built before 2023, to optional royalties. In other words, buyers are no longer required to pay the royalties that creators ask for.
OpenSea said that the operator filter won’t stop markets with similar policies from using the platform.
Some of these announcements may come as a surprise. But this action is part of a larger change on Web3 that favors NFT collectors over authors. Why have things moved this way in the markets? The story is clear from the facts. Dune analytics says that 80% of all NFT trading happens on platforms that don’t charge any fees. Buyers don’t like to pay royalties, but marketplaces want buyers.
The announcement comes just a few days after the NFT marketplace Blur, one of OpenSea’s biggest competitors in the field, wrote a blog post telling customers to block OpenSea.
Some people say that OpenSea started this conflict. Because of OpenSea’s rules, creators could not get full royalties from both Blur and OpenSea at the same time. Instead, customers had to pick one platform where they would get all of their royalties. When OpenSea finds trading on marketplaces that don’t require royalties, like Blur, it changes royalties to “optional.”
OpenSea said in their thread that Blur had an effect on their choice. “Recent events – including Blur’s decision to roll back creator earnings (even on filtered collections) and the false choice they’re forcing creators to make between liquidity on Blur or OpenSea – prove that our attempts are not working” they said.
Cover Image Source: nftnow.com