In a recent announcement posted on OpenSea’s account on August 17th, they officially declared the termination of their partnership with Binance Smart Chain (BSC). This means that OpenSea users will no longer be able to purchase NFTs minted on the BSC blockchain, but they can still view, explore, and transfer BSC NFTs on the platform.
OpenSea stated that this decision is part of their effort to reduce costs. The maintenance expenses for BSC NFTs were deemed to be “higher” than the profits gained from this collaboration.
This decision might come as a surprise to many, as Binance Smart Chain has continued to attract attention from the NFT community and has been considered a lower-cost alternative for minting NFTs.
Previously, OpenSea held the title of the largest NFT marketplace based on trading volume. However, according to data from DappRadar, they lost this position to the BLUR platform.
Many have criticized OpenSea as being responsible for this decline, attributing it to significant decisions made by them that often faced criticism from the NFT community.
One of these decisions involved enforcing copyright protection for creators. While other marketplaces (including BLUR) took a clear stance from the outset, OpenSea remained ambiguous and could lean towards either side depending on the profitability it brought to their business model.
Recently, the NFT market announced that they would end the “Operator Filter” feature that was previously used to impose fees on creators. This was due to the entire NFT ecosystem not accepting this feature. Instead, they will implement an “optional creator fee for all secondary sales for new collections.”
There are signs indicating that OpenSea’s decisions may have contributed to the decline in their NFT trading volume. Leading NFT company Yuga Labs announced that they would cease support for OpenSea’s SeaPort, potentially leading to a significant reduction in OpenSea’s transactions.
According to Yuga Labs’ CEO, Daniel Alegre, this move aims to protect creators’ copyrights and ensure they receive “proper compensation for their work.”