NFT marketplace OpenSea has reportedly announced the launch of a new ‘on-chain’ tool for helping NFT creators enforce royalties, amid the ongoing NFT royalty debate.
OpenSea holds a 66% market share in NFT marketplaces but was relatively quiet on the issue of royalties and enforcement while other players were implementing strategies in the past few months.
In a blog post, Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea, stated that with marketplaces having optional fees, the voluntary creator fee payment rate has gone lower than 20%, while other marketplaces were not paying any creator fees.
Finzer announced that the marketplace launched a new tool that offers ‘on-chain enforcement’ of creator royalties.
He described the tool as a simple code snippet with which creators can enforce royalties on their new NFT collection smart contracts and current upgradeable smart contracts. Moreover, the code will restrict NFT sales to only those marketplaces where creator fees are enforced.
Finzer said that it was clear how many wanted the ability to enforce fees on-chain and that OpenSea believes that creators hold the choice for that and not marketplaces.
He also highlighted that nobody will be forced to use the tool and creators can also use their desirable solution and implement it.
The post said that a template GitHub repo will be provided to creators to use the solution, which blocks lists marketplace not supporting creator fees, and that those who want creator fees will have to enforce the solution on-chain.
It should be noted that due to implementation challenges, the tool will not be available for current NFT collections as of now.
Finzer also stated that according to OpenSea, the better option for current creators would be to explore new monetization forms and alternative ways to incentivize buyers and sellers for paying creator fees and make sure that creator fees are enforced on-chain for their future collections.
The launch saw mixed reactions from the community, with some appreciating the tool while others feeling that OpenSea did not give clear details about existing collections and artists' royalties.
Source credit: https://cointelegraph.com/news/opensea-launches-new-on-chain-tool-to-enforce-nft-royalties