OpenSea Goes Zero-Fee, Creator Royalties Optional

Leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea said Friday it is temporarily eliminating its marketplace fee, heating up the battle for market share with popular no-fee marketplace Blur.

OpenSea said in a tweet that for “a limited time” it will charge 0% in marketplace fees, and default all collections without on-chain royalty enforcement to optional creator royalties starting at 0.5%.

The marketplace has also adjusted its blocklist of other marketplaces that don't honor full royalty payments to creators, allowing sales on NFT marketplaces with the same policies. It specified that this includes Blur "as they make good on their promise," no longer forcing creators to choose between the two platforms in order to earn full royalties on its collections.

“This is the start of a new era for OpenSea,” the marketplace said on Twitter. “We’re excited to test this model and find the right balance of incentives and motivations for all ecosystem participants – creators, collectors, and power buyers and sellers.”

The tension between Blur and OpenSea heightened this week following the release of Blur’s native token on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Blur’s trading volume surpassed OpenSea for the first time since it went live in October.

OpenSea has taken a hardline stance in the debate over creator royalties, launching a royalty enforcement tool in November that allows new collections listed on the site to delegate royalties on-chain. This tool also blocks these collections from being resold on marketplaces that don’t enforce royalties, like X2Y2 and Blur.

In January, Blur reportedly found a loophole in this tool, allowing collections that enforced royalties on OpenSea to uphold their percentages on Blur. On Wednesday, Blur published a blog post aimed at NFT creators that laid out the differences in royalty payment options between its platform and OpenSea, encouraging its users to blocklist OpenSea in order for creators to collect full royalties on its platform.