Battle of the NFT Marketplaces: Blur Tells Users to Block OpenSea!

A battle of the NFT marketplaces is ensuing in the NFT sector after Blur suggested its users block its competitor, OpenSea. On Wednesday, the zero-fee marketplace updated its royalty policy. Under the new rules, creators on the platform will get full royalties for their collections if they block their collections on OpenSea. 

Here’s all you need to know about the feud between OpenSea and Blur:

OpenSea vs Blur: What happened?

It all began with OpenSea’s decision to ban NFT marketplaces which offer optional royalties, like Blur. In November last year, OpenSea launched a tool for on-chain enforcement of creator royalties for new NFT collections on the platform. What exactly did this mean? In order to make royalties enforceable on OpenSea after January 2, 2023, creators must use on-chain tools to ban the sale of their NFTs on royalty-optional marketplaces.

As Blur is a royalty-optional marketplace, users have to block the sale of their NFTs on Blur to get full OpenSea royalties. If creators don’t do this, OpenSea will automatically make their royalties optional. In short, creators can only earn full royalties either only on OpenSea or Blur, not both. 

At the time, OpenSea pointed out how more and more creators and collectors are moving to marketplaces with optional royalties. “Unless something changes soon, this space is trending toward significantly fewer fees paid to creators. No policy that we implement will reverse this trend if this behavior continues.”

What is Blur’s new policy?

On Wednesday, February 15, Blur shared a blog post detailing its updated creator royalties policy. Essentially, the platform will now enforce royalty fees on NFTs so long as the creators block its sales on OpenSea. 

“Creators that whitelist both OpenSea and Blur should be able to earn royalties on both platforms,” Blur wrote in the blog post. “Today, OpenSea automatically sets royalties to optional when they detect trading on Blur. We would like to welcome OpenSea to stop this policy, so that new collections can earn royalties everywhere.”

The announcement is the latest development in the ongoing controversy surrounding creator royalties. Last year, amid dwindling market conditions, a range of marketplaces decided to make royalties optional. In fact, OpenSea mulled the idea at one point, before succumbing to NFT community pressure. This is when OpenSea launched its blocklist tool, significantly affecting Blur’s standing. 

How is NFT Twitter reacting to the OpenSea x Blur war?

Soon after Blur published its blog post, NFT Twitter reacted strongly. NFT founder, foobar, for instance, tweeted:

“blur coming out guns blazing, will enforce full royalties on collections that block opensea. this was always the obvious outcome of protocols who blacklist their competition, less fun when the competition grows big enough to blacklist you back.”

Meanwhile, ThreadGuy wrote, “Blur declared marketplace WAR by enforcing royalties on collections that block Opensea trading LMFAOOOOOOO.”

It is yet unclear who will win this battle: OpenSea or Blur?

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