0% Fees on OpenSea Implemented to Attract NFT Customer Share Lost to Blur

Users that expect higher returns on their NFT investments are seeking a trading environment that is advantageous to them, and as a result, NFT marketplace Blur has exceeded OpenSea in daily ETH trading volume.

As rival marketplaces continue to erode its once-dominant user base, major nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea announced a significant restructuring around reduced platform costs and higher creator revenues.

Nansen statistics show that on February 18, NFT marketplace Blur overtook OpenSea in daily Ether trading volume as users seek a trading environment that is advantageous to them in anticipation of higher returns on their NFT investments.

OpenSea responded by announcing three significant adjustments in an effort to retain its customers who were moving. The approaches include offering optional creator earnings, a temporary 0% charge, and leniency for other operators.

OpenSea acknowledged that it was losing customers to “NFT marketplaces that don’t fully enforce creator earnings,” and the new initiatives are an effort to regain its market leadership, it added:

“Recent events – including Blur’s decision to roll back creator earnings (even on filtered collections) and the false choice they’re forcing creators to make between liquidity on Blur or OpenSea – prove that our attempts are not working.”

OpenSea thinks it successfully protected creator revenues on all collections while maintaining its support for Operator Filter, a feature designed to assist artists in securing their income from the selling of their work. However this filter deliberately disallowed referrals from marketplaces with the same restrictions.

Blur's new royalty policy, which highlights the variations in royalty payment alternatives between its platform and OpenSea, can be credited with the company's dominance in daily trade volume. It read:

“OpenSea’s current royalty policy prevents collections from being able to earn royalties everywhere. They have cited various reasons for this (see FAQ), but the end result is that creators are limited to earning royalties on only one platform at a time.”

Community members emphasized the value of competition in the sector amid the royalty battle between the two marketplaces. Without markets that charge no royalties, more significant companies like OpenSea would eventually raise their prices, which would be detrimental to authors and collectors.

Also, OpenSea intends to keep evaluating the model to see what functions best for the organization and the community. If OpenSea is successful in gathering its lost clients, community members anticipate that it would likely boost its platform fees in the future—a predatory approach frequently observed in markets with less competition.

Neal Mohan's selection as YouTube's new CEO was seen by the crypto community as a victory because of Mohan's propensity to embrace NFTs and Web3 as revenue sources for producers.