OpenSea Introduces Its First On-Chain Tool That Lets NFT Creators Earn Royalties

The debate over royalties in the non-fungible token (NFT) sphere has caused much discourse among its users, especially after the market decided to move away from imposing such fees earlier this year.

OpenSea, the world’s most popular NFT marketplace, announces that it is now enforcing royalties on-chain that will apply to all future digital tokens uploaded and sold through its network beginning November 8.

The solution, which OpenSea’s CEO Devin Finzer called a “simple code snippet,” enables developers to impose royalties on present upgradeable smart contracts, as well as new and upcoming ones.

In addition, pieces processed using this tool will be blocked on marketplaces that do not execute such rulings as X2Y2 and Blur.

Though this is a step in the right direction toward attributing creators and allowing them to monetize, it does leave the fate of existing collections up in the air.

After speaking with @opensea it feels like there is no plan and no clear answers were given in regards to existing collections & artist’s royalties. Communication has been misleading and facts are not there. Speak up if you feel a certain way about this because it has impact.

— BETTY (@betty_nft) November 6, 2022

Currently, the system will only be available for future NFTs uploaded onto the market, although it is working on retroactively implementing the rules for digital tokens that already exist. However, it notes that it won’t make any further changes until December 8.

OpenSea stated in its blog post, “Make no mistake, technical decisions like this involve trade-offs: enforcing creator fees on-chain requires sacrificing some of the censorship-resistance and permissionless nature of NFTs.”

 
 
 
[via CoinDesk and Cointelegraph, cover image via OpenSea]