OpenSea had recently launched an “on-chain” tool to help creators enforce royalty fees for new NFT collections. Starting tomorrow, the month-long test will help OpenSea determine whether they’d cut creator royalties on existing collections in the long run and if they’ll move to an optional royalties system.

Royalty fees are earned by NFT artists every time their work changes hands. This is very important for them as it would give them more financial freedom and create more great artwork. Creator royalties have been around the web3 space since the beginning and many still believe that it’s an essential feature because they are being rewarded for their artwork and it is not the art collectors who earn more.

OpenSea CEO and co-founder David Finzer discussed the firm’s history of honoring royalties (about 5% -10% fee set by creators) which the seller pays on secondary market sale. Over the past few months, a lot of upstart and marketplace competitors tried to remove the market share through zero-royalty or optional trading. 

The NFT Marketplace which commands 66% of the market share has been silent about the issue while the others have been doing their own strategies over the past months. And many artists aren’t happy about OpenSea’s plan on royalty fees, which are a bit of a burden, although not a great deal.

“After speaking with @opensea, it feels like there is no plan, and no clear answers were given regarding existing collections & artists’ royalties. Communication has been misleading, and facts are not there. Speak up if you feel a certain way about this because it has an impact.” – Betty_NFT, creator of Deadfellaz.

Since OpenSea is the biggest NFT marketplace in the world, any move would really make quite an impact on the Web3 world. The company can take the time to listen to the artists who sell their amazing NFT on their marketplace.