While OpenSea has unveiled the end of its ‘carrier filter’, Yuga Labs has announced measures to protest the decision. What is the operator filter, and what does it mean for the NFT community?
OpenSea ends its “operator filter “
This week, OpenSea unveiled the end of its “operator filter” for creators of non-fungible tokens (NFT) from 31 August, which has led to the displeasure of Yuga Labs, creator of the Bored Ape Yatch Club (BAYC) collection.
To put things into context, the operator filter was launched in November 2022 to give designers the option of limiting the resale of their NFTs to the secondary market, on marketplaces that apply royalty payments.
The company is seeing the emergence of competitors such as Blur, who are adopting a “0 fees” policy, and had already warned last February that creators were not being paid their fair value on 80% of NFT market volumes. This operator filter was supposed to offer a fairer environment for copyright.
However, OpenSea notes that this filter does not correspond to market demand:
“It was intended to give creators more control over their Web3 business models, but that required buy-in from all members of the Web3 ecosystem, and unfortunately that didn’t happen. “
Yuga Labs expresses dissatisfaction
Faced with the announced changes, Yuga Labs has announced that it will phase out support for OpenSea’s SeaPort protocol for its “evolving contracts and all new collections”:
On @opensea‘s decision to sunset their Operator Filter. pic.twitter.com/ahc155WWkX
– Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) August 18, 2023
The studio is therefore aiming for February 2024, the date until which preferential fees will continue to be paid to creators who activate the operator filter before 31 August.
In reality, it is important to understand that OpenSea is not putting an end to royalties; in fact, the platform will continue to pay the fees due to creators. However, creators will no longer be able to restrict the resale of their collections to platforms that apply the same policy when they use OpenSea to deploy their NFTs.
As a result, it is up to investors to think about how they buy their NFTs, taking care to use marketplaces that respect copyright payments.
To compensate for its decision, OpenSea will now offer buyers the option of displaying only NFT listings that pay fees to their creator.
