Newsletter #120
OpenSea Shifts Stance on Royalties: A Strategic Blunder?
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This week’s featured collector is cryptogallerist
Cryptogallerist is interested in business, innovation and leadership. Their NFT collection focuses on Ethereum and they are big fans of StretchedOut, Donut Nomads, and Celestial. Check out their collection at lazy.com/cryptogallerist
OpenSea Shifts Stance on Royalties: A Strategic Blunder?
The ongoing tug-of-war over NFT royalties seems to have reached a pivotal moment. This week, OpenSea, one of the most well-known NFT marketplaces, announced it would no longer enforce royalties.
In November 2022, OpenSea introduced the Operator Filter, a tool aimed at allowing creators to restrict the sale of their collections to NFT marketplaces that protected creator fees in secondary sales. However, OpenSea has now officially reversed course: starting August 31, 2023, creator fees on OpenSea will become optional, and the Operator Filter will be discontinued. Although OpenSea will still enforce creator's preferred fees for certain collections until February 29, 2024, from then on, the fees will be optional. OpenSea believes that this shift better aligns with the principles of choice and ownership central to the decentralized world. Moreover, OpenSea argues that creator fees are just one of the many revenue streams available to creators in the evolving web3 landscape.
The reaction to OpenSea’s decision has been strong. An NFT artist responded with palpable disappointment: “This is the worst thing that I could read this year. After 6 months of hard work in 2 days I will launch my free NFT collection. Everyone could mint for free and I will just enjoy a bit of royalties. And now? No more royalties enforcement.. waste of time and money.”
Mark Cuban, an early investor in OpenSea and founder of Lazy.com, expressed his dissent vocally on social media. He remarked, “Not collecting and paying royalties on NFT sales is a HUGE mistake by OpenSea. It diminished trust in the platform and hurts the industry. The optional royalty approach kills future applications that go far beyond collectibles. Which is where the most money will be.”
Although there's a cohort in favor of OpenSea's decision, the predominant sentiment leans toward disapproval.
With the erasure of royalties, the onus now squarely falls on NFT artisans to devise alternative monetization strategies – and the clock is ticking.
This week’s poll: Do you agree with OpenSea’s decision to abandon royalties?
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