The creator fee structure at OpenSea is in for some major changes. The NFT marketplace will make creator fees options for NFT collections added to the platform after August 31.
“For collections that enabled the OpenSea Operator Filter prior to August 31, and for existing collections on all non-Ethereum blockchains, OpenSea will enforce the creator’s preferred fees on all secondary sales from August 31, 2023 through February 29, 2024,” OpenSea said in a statement.
However, the NFT marketplace made it clear that the creator fees as such will not stop but only the unilateral enforcement will be sunsetted.
“In November 2022, we launched the Operator Filter: a tool designed to give creators more control by restricting the sale of their collections to web3 marketplaces that enforce creator fees in secondary sales. It was meant to empower creators with greater control over their web3 business models, but it required the buy-in of everyone in the web3 ecosystem, and unfortunately that has not happened,” OpenSea said in the statement.
One of the most attractive features of NFTs has been the promise to pay the creators royalties on perpetual sales; every time the NFT is traded, a percentage of commission has to go to the creator.
However, this dynamics took a hit in February 2022 when X2Y2 began to work with 0% creator royalty fees. The prolonged market downturn further encouraged this trend.
While OpenSea continued with up to 10% royalties until February 2023, but it had to reduce them after facing competition from Blur which offered only 0.5% creator royalty fee.
