Rarible, the aggregated NFT marketplace, today announced on Twitter that it will no longer be aggregating orders from OpenSea, LooksRare or X2Y2.
In a statement posted on X ( formerly Twitter), Rarible co-founder Alex Salnikov took a stand for creators.
“Web3 offers an underlying promise of hope, especially for artists and creators. More than just minting NFTs, this space is about redefining the paradigm in which creativity is valued and compensated,” stated Salnikov.
This move comes after OpenSea’s recent announcement of sunsetting its royalty enforcement tool called the OpenSea Operator Filter, on Aug 31. In tandem, the platform will be moving to optional creator fees.
Introduced in November last year, the Operator Filter emerged amid heated discussions about creator royalties. OpenSea held the belief that the Operator Filter’s effectiveness hinged on garnering backing from every marketplace in the ecosystem, a goal that remained unfulfilled.
“Since its introduction, we’ve seen several web3 marketplaces and aggregators (including Blur, Dew, and LooksRare) circumvent the Operator Filter to avoid enforcing creator fees on their platforms,” explained Devin Finzer, co-founder & CEO of OpenSea.
After the Operator Filter was integrated into OpenSea, NFT marketplace X2Y2 followed suit by mandating royalties for all collections. Nevertheless, it seems that X2Y2 has reversed this stance, given that Rarible will cease aggregating orders from the platform.
LooksRare, another NFT marketplace that Rarible called out, offers zero royalty trading.
While OpenSea said that the unilateral enforcement of creator royalties would end, existing collections – including those on non-Ethereum blockchains currently using the Operator Filter will have their designated creator fees enforced on OpenSea through Feb 29, 2024.
Rarible’s stance could potentially be construed as a marketing stunt aimed at generating interest in the platform. This is further fueled by the fact that Rarible introduced a free Open Edition mint on Polygon called “R is for Royalties” just a day after OpenSea updated its creator fee policy.
According to data on Dune Analytics, OpenSea continues to maintain its position as the leading NFT marketplace in terms of volume, across both Ethereum and Polygon.
Even though Blur, another platform disregarding creator royalties, surpassed OpenSea’s weekly volume from December 2022 to July of this year, it seems like the company has successfully reestablished its market dominance.
In July, OpenSea saw a monthly transaction volume of over $127 million for Ethereum NFTs while Rarible’s transaction volume on Ethereum amounted to just $396,635 over the same period.
Source: mPost
