In a blog post published on Wednesday, the zero-fee marketplace suggested that creators limit sales on rival OpenSea in order to receive full royalties on its platform.
As both platforms compete for market share among NFT developers, the conflict between leading rival OpenSea and zero-fee non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Blur has gotten more intense.
Yesterday we made an update to our royalty policy. Here’s the blog post accompanying that - it was meant to go out yesterday but due to the launch mayhem we weren’t able to publish until now. https://t.co/jeRcQYkvAr
— Blur (@blur_io) February 15, 2023
In a blog post aimed at NFT artists, Blur detailed the variations in royalty payment possibilities between its platform and OpenSea on Wednesday. When Blur originally went up in October, the platform used a royalty-optional business strategy made popular by rivals like X2Y2. It began extending royalties to eligible NFTs in November, and a month later it started enforcing a 0.5% minimum royalty rate.
Blur now claims that collections will need to blocklist OpenSea, which mandates full royalties for new projects that launch on its platform, in order for authors to receive full royalties on its platform. This is accomplished by giving authors the option to add a piece of code to their NFT contracts that forbids the sale of their work on secondary NFT markets that disregard royalties. According to Blur's post.
“Our preference is that creators should be able to earn royalties on all marketplaces that they whitelist, rather than being forced to choose.”
The blog post described the different measures creators can take to guarantee they receive royalties when their works are made available for resale on Blur. According to the platform, because to inconsistencies in the rules, artists are unable to get royalties from both OpenSea and Blur at the same time, and it is advised that creators prevent their tokens from being listed on OpenSea. Blur stated:
“Today, OpenSea automatically sets royalties to optional when they detect trading on Blur. We would like to welcome OpenSea to stop this policy so that new collections can earn royalties everywhere.”
Trading on secondary marketplaces that disregard author royalties is prohibited by OpenSea's regulation, but in January, traders found what appeared to be a gap that let Blur get around it. As a result, the rivalry between OpenSea and Blur has grown more intense. According to blockchain data analytics platform Nansen, trading volumes have grown quickly in recent months.
Blur launched its eagerly anticipated native token, BLUR, on Tuesday. A few hours after the airdrop, trading volume for BLUR hit $500 million. Dune Analytics data show that Blur has outperformed OpenSea in terms of trade volume over the past week by over $13 million.
