What’s the impact of the decision by Yuga Labs, the brains behind the renowned Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, to sever ties with the NFT marketplace OpenSea? This comes in the wake of OpenSea’s move towards an optional royalty model. OpenSea revealed on August 17, that they are altering their creator fee structure, making royalties optional for new collections post-August 31, 2023. They also announced the discontinuation of the Operator Filter, a tool that enforces creator royalties. OpenSea’s announcement clarified that NFT collections which had been utilizing the Operator Filter till August 31 will have their creator royalties enforced till February 29, 2024, post which the fees will become optional.
Understanding OpenSea’s Decision
In their blog post, OpenSea rationalized their decision stating that the Operator Filter was meant to provide creators with more control. However, they admit that it hasn’t been widely accepted in the web3 ecosystem.
Yuga Labs’ Response
On August 18, Yuga Labs released an open letter on X (previously Twitter), subtly critiquing OpenSea’s decision to make creator fees optional for all secondary sales for all collections by February 2024. Yuga Labs also revealed their plan to gradually reduce support for OpenSea’s SeaPort, a protocol that facilitates NFT transactions. Yuga Labs CEO, Daniel Alegre, stated that while NFTs were meant to revolutionize digital asset ownership, they were also about empowering artists and creators. “Yuga believes in protecting creator royalties so creators are properly compensated for their work,” he further added.
OpenSea’s Stance on BNB Smart Chain
OpenSea also recently decided to halt the minting and listing of NFTs on the BNB smart chain. According to a post on X, this decision was motivated by the need to align resources with the most promising efforts. The announcement read: Starting today (August 18, 2023), you will no longer be able to create new listings for or make new offers on BSC NFTs. However, you will still be able to view, discover, and transfer BSC NFTs on our site. This new development has reduced OpenSea’s total supported chains to 10, including Arbitrum, Avalanche, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon, Solana, and the recently-added Base and Zora.
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