Declaring the move as their “next experiment”, NFT collective DeGods is the latest to introduce a 0% royalty policy. It calls the move the best decision for the business, effectively removing the collection from potential future legal action related to artist royalties.
Non-fungible tokens, also known as NFTs, are cryptographically unique tokens linked to digital and physical content, membership or proof of ownership.
Prior to NFTs, the industry standard was to pay royalties to artists as a percentage of purchases on the secondary market. However, these follow-on sales were difficult to track – a problem that NFTs are well positioned to solve.
But recent moves by artists and NFT marketplaces have shown a desire to move away from this model. Top Ethereum NFT Collection CryptoPunks also has a 0% royalty structure and other prominent creators give away all commercial rights to their work.
DeGods announced the change Sunday by posting on the group’s Twitter account.
“We still think royalties are an incredible use case for NFTs,” DeGods tweeted on Sunday. “We will continue to support creators who want to find solutions to enforce royalties.”
Launched in October 2021, DeGods is a collection of 10,000 Solana NFTs. Holders of DeGods and DeadGods NFTs can stake these NFTs and earn DUST utility tokens for doing so. Dust Labs’ DUST utility token was originally launched as a reward for DeGods holders.
The DUST utility token is currently trading at $1.27, down 4.7% since DeGods’ announcement, according to data from CoinGecko.
DeGods says the new 0% royalty stance will apply to t00bs and y00ts NFT collections.
“If royalties go away … I think the space will be more open to redefine what ‘blanket’ means,” tweeted DeGod’s pseudonymous creator Frank, referring to accusations that DeGod’s was a “rug pull” or scam. “For 5 months people called us a dead project and a blanket.”
In an effort to lower fees, Solana NFT marketplace Solanart had announced in August that it was “re-introducing” custom fees on the marketplace for buyers and sellers, tweeting: “This time YOU choose what is fair.”
Noting DeGods’ move to 0% fees today, Solanart defended the collection against claims that it will go to zero.
“We heard DeGods is coming to ZERO? Well sell me all you want for 33.33 SOL, so damn (and apply 0% fees),” they tweeted.
Crown Capital DAO founder Dylan Shub challenged DeGods announcement on Twitter.
“Considering you made a big splash when the royalty debate started on how you will enforce royalties or deny service,” he tweeted“I would really like to hear a little more about how you came to this conclusion.”
“This decision is not good for the space,” @hyxttcrypto basically wrote. “In the short-term, teams have coin funds, but long-term royalties are the main incentive for teams to stay active, motivated, able to grow and hire people in the space. DeGods are where they are because of royalties.”
While some are critical of DeGod’s decision, others see an advantage to the change.
“It’s strange that @frankdegods needs to defend a move to 0% royalties,” he tweeted @Punk9059, the pseudonymous director of research for the Proof Collective. “It’s a SOL transfer from him to everyone else. And everyone else is mad.”
“I’m all for royalties. But he just got millions off y00t’s mint and raised VC funding,” they continued. “It seems very poor to suggest that this shows he doesn’t care.”
“They are just the front runner in the market,” DeGods fan wrote @punk828_. “Everyone is already looking for zero royalties. This just forces the teams to build external revenue streams and actual businesses and not just be a jpeg project with no real use case.”
Even @hyxttcrypto changed his mind a few hours later.
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