​​NFT marketplace Rarible sees uptick after commitment to royalties

NFT aggregator Rarible said by October it would cut off aggregate orders from competitors that don’t enforce royalties, such as OpenSea.

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Rarible has seen a substantial uptick in trading volume over 24 hours following a public statement in support of maintaining NFT creator royalties.

It comes as competitor NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea have rewound support for royalties and royalty enforcement — prompting other NFT projects to also begin rewinding support for OpenSea.

Data from the analytics platform DappRadar shows that 24-hour fiat trading volume on Rarible reached $1,500 across 38 sales for Aug. 23, clocking a 653% increase from the day before.

1/ Following @rarible‘s decision to maintain creator royalties, and remove both @opensea and @blur_io from their aggregation data, Rarible’s trading volume is up 637% in the past 24h.

Do you think Rarible is right?

View @rarible on DappRadar https://t.co/9hh0AQa7Nj pic.twitter.com/cg1dPChYar

— DappRadar (@DappRadar) August 23, 2023

While the figures are small relative to its competitors over the same period, Rarible’s 653% volume increase beat out OpenSea — which saw a 15% trading volume drop over 24 hours — and LooksRare and X2Y2 with respective 24-hour volume increases of 5.8% and 14%.

Rarible’s volume rise follows co-founder Alex Salnikov stating on Aug. 22 that it “will no longer support marketplaces that neglect royalties” and by Sep. 30 it won’t aggregate orders from OpenSea, LooksRare or X2Y2.

We support royalties.
We always have.
And we always will.

By September 30th, https://t.co/xjSw1Jg8bV will no longer aggregate orders from OpenSea, LooksRare or X2Y2. pic.twitter.com/BfOWVTCboT

— Rarible (@rarible) August 22, 2023

“This space is about redefining the paradigm in which creativity is valued and compensated,” Salnikov said. “We cannot continue to standby as that promise is taken away.”

Related: Bitcoin Ordinals NFT trading volume tanks 98% since May — DappRadar

In February, OpenSea scrapped enforcing NFT creator royalties — admitting it lost ground to Blur, another popular NFT marketplace that doesn’t enforce creator royalties.

On Aug. 17, OpenSea announced it would shutter its royalty enforcement tool allowing creators to blacklist non-royalty enforcing marketplaces due to a lack of adoption.

Meanwhile, royalties earned by Ethereum-based NFT projects hit a two-year low according to July data from analytics firm Nansen.

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