OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces, announced that it will be changing its royalty model starting on the 31st of this month.
The crypto community is facing a new dilemma. Opensea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces today, has announced a major change that impacts creators of works through these digital assets.
In a statement, Opensea announced that starting August 31, it will switch to an optional royalty model on all secondary sales for new NFT collections. This means that non-fungible token creators will no longer be able to lock in any marketplace, even if they do not meet creator fees.
OpenSea noted that this move comes due to the poor reception that the creator filter tool received in the NFT market. “It was meant to empower creators with more control over their Web3 business models, but it required buy-in from everyone in the Web3 ecosystem, and unfortunately, that hasn’t happened,” the platform said in the statement. release.
The creator filter was launched last November with the idea of giving NFT creators more control over their crypto collections by restricting the sale of their NFTs to Web3 marketplaces that respect creator fees on secondary sales of these crypto assets.
OpenSea will maintain creator fees
While OpenSea will gradually phase out creator fees on secondary sales, the platform’s founder and CEO Devin Finzer stressed that the marketplace’s change to its royalty model will not eliminate them entirely.
According to Finzer, creator fees will continue to be one of the many sources of income that NFT creators have on the platform, but the way they are applied will be changed.
“To be clear, creator fees are not going away, just the ineffective and unilateral application of them.”, Finzer said.
In addition, the CEO of OpenSea highlighted that for existing NFT collections on blockchains, with the exception of Ethereum, and for creators who enable the creator filter before August 31, the platform will apply the preferred creator fees until February of next year.
A measure to attract NFT buyers and collectors
Finzer highlighted that the shift to an optional royalty model for NFT creators is meant to align with the principles of Web3 decentralization. “The choice of creator fees is important for both collectors and creators,” he said, noting that the creator filter was also affecting NFT holders’ sense of control and ownership over where they can sell their digital assets.
However, the change announced by OpenSea has not been well received by much of the crypto community.
Controversy in the crypto community over OpenSea's change
American businessman Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Dogecoin advocate and Opensea investor, is one of those who has harshly criticized the changes announced by the NFT marketplace platform.
From his X account (formerly Twitter), Cuban told OpenSea that it is making “a huge mistake.” “It diminishes trust in the platform and harms the industry,” he said, referring to not charging and paying royalties to the creators of non-fungible tokens as a fundamental right they have.
Like Cuban, the company behind several of the most successful NFT crypto collections, Yuga Labs, also expressed its opposition to OpenSea's changes to its royalty model.
Likewise, the founder of Deadfellaz, known as Betty, stated that OpenSea was failing artists and creators, especially those who are just starting out in the world of NFTs. “Emerging artists will never, ever see the advantage that almost all of the big brands and artists received before all of this,” Betty said on X, asserting that the decision made by the NFT platform will undermine the innovation of this market.
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Main image taken from Yahoo Finance
