Collectors have continued to forgo paying optional royalties for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), according to a report from data analytics platform Nansen released Wednesday. Royalty payments reached their peak in April 2022, contributing to 28,000 ETH, or nearly $76 million, in one week of creator earnings. However, June’s peak week saw creators collectively earn only 2,000 ETH, or about $3.8 million.
Competition between marketplaces has seen both Blur and OpenSea vying to keep royalty payments low while incentivizing trading. “Royalties have been declining since February and Blur took a bigger share of royalties paid to be on par with OpenSea,” said Nansen analysts Javier Cerdan and Edward Wilson. “Funny enough, in these last two weeks, Blur has been dominating the share of royalties paid.”
Despite the drop in June, several blue-chip collections have still raked in millions in royalty payments since their inception. As of July 4, NFT behemoth Yuga Labs has grossed nearly $166 million in collective royalties across its collections, while Chiru Labs has earned over $58 million in royalties for its Azuki collection and derivatives.
The conversation about whether to honor NFT royalties began to heat up in October when Blur launched its zero-fee marketplace. After criticism from creators and collectors, Blur began allowing collections to opt in or out of enforcing creator fees. Other NFT marketplaces, like X2Y2 and Magic Eden, have also recently changed their royalty enforcement policies.