All of this comes as a rival NFT marketplace called Blur continues to wrestle away market share from OpenSea — causing insult to injury at a time of lower trading volumes.
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OpenSea has unveiled "big changes" to fees as it battles to remain the world's biggest NFT marketplace.
On Twitter, the platform declared that, for a limited time only, it will no longer be taking a commission whenever non-fungible tokens are sold through its website.
There's also some bad news for digital artists who rely on receiving their income through secondary sales.
From now on, creator earnings are going to be optional and set at a minimum of 0.5% — far less than the 5% to 10% that many have become accustomed to.
Such a healthy percentage will only be guaranteed to those that have an on-chain enforcement method in place.
Indicating that its hand has been forced by recent changes in the NFT ecosystem, OpenSea tweeted:
"In October, we started to see meaningful volume and users move to NFT marketplaces that don’t fully enforce creator earnings. Today, that shift has accelerated dramatically despite our best efforts."
Blurred Lines
All of this comes as a rival NFT marketplace called Blur continues to wrestle away market share from OpenSea — causing insult to injury at a time of lower trading volumes.
Blur also doesn't enforce creator royalties — and OpenSea caused controversy when it started to allow NFT creators to stop their collectibles from being traded on this marketplace.
Data from Dune Analytics makes some sober reading for OpenSea, and shows just how popular Blur has become in recent months.
Back in November, OpenSea had about 22,700 daily active traders, while Blur was languishing behind on 5,400.
Fast forward to now, and OpenSea has 26,000 — while the number of daily active traders on Blur has almost quadrupled to 19,200.
This means that there's a real risk of OpenSea being leapfrogged in the rankings within a matter of weeks.
Shifting Sands
OpenSea says its attempts to defend creator earnings have been unsuccessful — and the latest figures show that 80% of total ecosystem volume does not pay out royalties in full, with many transactions moving to a zero-fee environment.
The marketplace's current approach will give users the option to pay additional royalties if they want to support an artist's work.
Attempting to strike an upbeat tone, OpenSea wrote:
"This is the start of a new era for OpenSea. We’re excited to test this model and find the right balance of incentives and motivations for all ecosystem participants — creators, collectors, and power buyers and sellers."
Much of the reaction to OpenSea's Twitter thread was pretty mixed. Many wondered how on earth the company would be able to make money now, while others urged the platform to follow Blur's lead by releasing its own token. One follower, Rahul Sood, wrote:
"This just seems like a race to the bottom. When the biggest company joins the race to the bottom then there is no bottom. Good luck with the business I guess."
Others questioned how long OpenSea's fee would remain at zero, and whether its commission will end up being hiked again once users return.
