Newsletter #84

OpenSea enters the royalty debate

Dec 09, 2022

This week’s featured collection is PapaAfrica

PapaAfrica is “hustling in the metaverse.” Their collection of Ethereum NFTs ranges from Runner to Friendship Bracelets and Valhalla. Lots of great art! Browse their collection at lazy.com/papaafrica

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Here’s a brief summary of events to get you up to speed: As we discussed in Newsletter #70, in recent months there have arisen NFT marketplaces that do not pay royalties to creators. This has led to anger from artists who are losing out on income.

Now, in an unexpected turn of events, OpenSea has announced plans to cajole NFT creators to blacklist marketplaces that don’t pay royalties.

In a series of tweets yesterday, OpenSea declared that “the revolutionary potential of creator fees has been under attack for months” and therefore, “It’s an existential imperative for the space to preserve creator fees.”

In other words: the fully decentralized ethos of crypto is breaking down as the largest NFT marketplace begins to enforce its vision on the community. The result may be two disconnected NFTs ecosystems: one that respects royalties, the other that is wild and free.

The reaction to OpenSea’s moves have been strong:

Sofia Garcia writes, OpenSea’s “approach to NFT royalties is short-sighted, coercive, and the antithesis to a movement you’ve been a part of since the beginning.”

DCinvestor writes, "what OpenSea is doing … is insidious because it seeks to subjugate all creators who still want royalties into what will effectively be a proprietary OpenSea ecosystem.”

The founder of artblocks.io writes, “OpenSea’s stance … is wrong.”

For their part, OpenSea has responded to critics by adjusting their plans slightly. It is too early to know exactly how their implementation will change.

Right or wrong, OpenSea’s moves will have a big impact on the future of NFTs and what the NFT ecosystem looks like during the next bull cycle. We’ll be following these developments closely.

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