The nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Rarible has experienced a significant surge in trading activity within a 24-hour span following a public declaration in support of maintaining NFT creator royalties.
This development comes as rival NFT marketplaces, including OpenSea, have reversed their stance on royalties and their enforcement. As a result, other NFT projects have also begun distancing themselves from OpenSea.
According to data from the analytics platform DappRadar, Rarible witnessed an impressive surge of nearly 585% in fiat trading volume over a 24-hour period, reaching a value exceeding $45,000 on August 23. While the figures might seem modest in comparison to its competitors during the same timeframe, Rarible’s trading volume leap outperformed OpenSea and LooksRare.
The latter two experienced respective drops of approximately 19% and 74% in trading volume over the same 24 hours. On the other hand, X2Y2 observed a modest volume increase of 8.8% during that time.
Rarible’s notable increase in trading volume was spurred by the co-founder, Alex Salnikov, stating on August 22 that the platform “will no longer support marketplaces that neglect royalties.
” Furthermore, Rarible intends to stop aggregating orders from OpenSea, LooksRare, and X2Y2 by September 30. Salnikov emphasized that the essence of this space lies in redefining how creativity is valued and compensated, underscoring that they cannot stand by as this principle is eroded.
Back in February, OpenSea abandoned the enforcement of NFT creator royalties, admitting that it had ceded ground to Blur, another prominent NFT marketplace that doesn’t enforce such royalties.
On August 17, OpenSea made an announcement that it would discontinue its royalty enforcement tool. This tool allowed creators to blacklist marketplaces that didn’t uphold creator royalties, but it faced limited adoption, leading to its discontinuation.
Simultaneously, royalties earned from Ethereum-based NFT projects hit a two-year low, according to data from the analytics firm Nansen in July.
