OpenSea plans to continue to enforce NFT royalties on its platform, after X2Y2, Magic Eden, and LooksRare altered their NFT royalty structures
“The world is otherwise burning, but we decided this couldn't wait,” a representative from OpenSea told CoinDesk.
Context & Ripple Effects
Days after several marketplaces stopped honoring NFT royalties — the 5%-10% fee creators set on secondary sales — OpenSea is drawing a line in the opposite direction, saying it will keep enforcing them. The stakes are real: OpenSea reported creators collectively earned $1.1B in royalties in 2022, with 80% going to collections outside the top 10, meaning enforcement matters most for long-tail creators with the least negotiating power.
First-order effects
- Creators selling on OpenSea keep their royalty income, while sellers on X2Y2, Magic Eden, and LooksRare can now bypass that fee — making those venues cheaper places to flip NFTs.
Second-order effects
- OpenSea's stance puts its own trading volume at risk, since royalty-optional rivals can undercut it on transaction cost; the pressure is on enforcement-minded marketplaces to justify the fee with liquidity, trust, or exclusivity.
Third-order effects
- Royalty enforcement is becoming a competitive differentiator rather than an industry default — a split later formalized when Magic Eden and Yuga Labs launched a platform contractually obligated to honor creator royalties, suggesting creator-first marketplaces may consolidate around explicit guarantees instead of protocol norms.
The trend: NFT royalties are shifting from an unenforced community norm to an explicit competitive lever, splitting the marketplace landscape into creator-enforcing and trader-first camps.