The leading NFT marketplace platform, OpenSea, was forced to adjust NFT royalty fees because of stiff competition from rival Blur.
On the morning of February 18, the largest NFT exchange in the cryptocurrency industry, OpenSea, suddenly announced the adjustment of transaction fees and NFT royalty fees.
Accordingly, OpenSea will:
- Free trading for NFT buyers for a certain period of time;
- Allow NFT creators to self-regulate royalty fees, at least 0.5%;
- Removal of previous royalty-imposed regulations;
- Removed the NFT platform blocker that allows for royalty adjustment.
We’re making some big changes today:
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— OpenSea (@opensea) February 17, 2023
Explaining the change, OpenSea admits that the NFT array is witnessing a big shift. Since last October, OpenSea has seen both users and trading volumes migrate to rival NFT exchanges without imposing royalty fees.
The exchange has always considered maintaining royalties as a form of protection for content creators, who have contributed significantly to the popularity of NFT and deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. that. That’s why in 2022, OpenSea is proud to have redistributed more than $1 billion in royalties to NFT collections.
However, with the NFT trading volume continuously declining in 2022, the excitement of the crypto investment community has disappeared. Therefore, many new collections have chosen to waive royalties in order to reduce the selling price, attracting more interested collectors. Emerging NFT exchanges such as X2Y2, Magic Eden or the latest Blur have clearly recognized that need and given NFT creators the right to customize the royalty fee.
On the contrary, OpenSea still maintains the stance of copyright protection, even setting up an on-chain mechanism for NFT collections to block the resale of their products on marketplaces that do not impose royalty fees.
However, the above direction is acknowledged by OpenSea as a mistake when seeing both users and transaction volume flowing to other platforms.
In the middle of this week, Blur made a “declaration of war” on OpenSea when calling NFT creators to block OpenSea if they want to receive all Blur royalties. The declaration of war came shortly after the remarkable BLUR token airdrop event, which helped 24h trading volume on Blur surpass the competition for the first time since its launch in October 2022.
OpenSea affirms that with the new changes in transaction fees and royalties mentioned above, this is a marker “where a new era begins”.
Even so, many crypto users say that despite trying to change the fee model to resemble its competitors, OpenSea will become less and less attractive, simply because it does not have its own token. Some also advise OpenSea to look for new ways to revive interest among NFT collectors instead of using a fee-competitive strategy because it’s not profitable in the long run.
.@opensea when airdrop?
— LooksRare (@LooksRare) February 17, 2023
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