NFT marketplace says no to opt-in royalties, Visa jumps on World Cup NFTs and more

by · November 1, 2022

NFT marketplace says no to optional royalties

While non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces such as Ethereum (ETH)-based X2Y2, LooksRare and Solana (SOL)-based Magic Eden have moved to “optional” royalties for creators, a recently launched marketplace is taking a hard stand against it .

Find Satoshi Lab, the company behind the popular move-to-earn app StepN has launched its new NFT marketplace called MOOAR on November 1st, notably with “no optional royalties”.

Instead, the NFT royalty policy will default to 2%, but allow creators to set royalties between 0.5% and 10%. There is no option for 0% royalties, nor can it be set by the user.

“With the raging debate going on around the payment of royalties, we are aware that many users have been vocal in opposing the enforcement of such royalties,” the MOOAR team said in a Medium post.

“Full sympathy with the sentiment, we strongly believe that this ‘cancel culture’ has forced marketplaces into a corner to the point that prominent marketplaces have adopted optional royalties,” it added.

On August 27, Ethereum-based NFT marketplace X2Y2 announced that it would introduce an option that allows buyers to set the royalty fee when purchasing an NFT.

With the new update, buyers on the platform will have the freedom to specify how many royalties they want to contribute to an NFT project. This means that some creators may not receive royalties when their artwork is sold.

The controversial move was followed by Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden on Oct. 15, which announced it too would move to an optional royalty model after “difficult reflection and discussion with many creators.”

Less than two weeks later, on October 27th, NFT marketplace LooksRare became the latest to bow to pressure from buyers, announcing that it stopped enforcing royalties for creators, allowing buyers to choose to pay royalties on opt-in -basis.

Visa joins the World Cup NFT campaign

Credit card giant Visa has become the latest major company set to cash in on FIFA World Cup-related nonfungible tokens (NFTs) – unveiling a charity auction for five NFTs ahead of the upcoming tournament in Qatar.

The auction is in collaboration with the crypto exchange Crypto.com, and all auction proceeds go to Street Child United, a charity that promotes the rights of poor children.

Each NFT features digital art inspired by iconic goals from five famous footballers, including Jared Borgetti, Tim Cahill, Carli Lloyd, Michael Owen and Maxi Rodriguez, and is part of the ‘Visa Masters of Movement’.

NFT titled “Jared Borgetti 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea Japan™”

The credit card company has been a longtime proponent of NFTs and its ability to offer a “promising medium for fan engagement.”

In a report released on August 23, 2021, Visa said that “NFTs appeal to collectors, fans, teams, leagues and talent.”

In particular, NFTs can become primary sources of fan engagement, customer relationship management and newer revenue streams, it said.

Visa’s announcement also comes on the same day that Crypto.com announced that it will now be able to issue its own Crypto.com Visa card in Singapore, after becoming a Visa Associate Program member in the city-state.

The Crypto.com Visa card will allow the exchange’s users in Singapore to use it for daily purchases and earn rewards in CRO coins.

Visa is the official payment technology partner of FIFA. Other notable sponsors include Crypto.com, which became an official sponsor in March, and blockchain network Algorand, which in May partnered as FIFA’s official blockchain platform.

Ripple’s new stomping ground for NFTs

As of October 31st, Ripple’s XRPL blockchain has officially become a new home for NFTs.

RippleX developers have been working on the project since the XLS-20 proposal was submitted on May 25, 2021, which proposed the goal of bringing NFTs to the XRP Ledger.

At the time, the team described the proposal as one that would introduce extensions to the XRP Ledger that would support a “native non-fungible token type, along with operations to enumerate, buy, sell and hold such tokens.”

Ripple CTO David Schwartz told his 395,600 Twitter followers on October 31 that the XLS-20 standard is now enabled on the XRP Ledger Mainnet after a vote approved the rollout of the technology.

Schwartz noted that “this presents an important milestone for developers and creators to tokenize any asset and build innovative Web3 projects with utility.”

In an accompanying Nov. 1 blog post, Schwartz said the benefits of launching NFTs on the XRP Ledger include much lower costs for minting, trading, and otherwise transferring NFTs compared to “leading layer-1 blockchain solutions.”

He also said that their “non-smart contracts” approach will make NFTs on XRPL less vulnerable to hacks, while NFTs will include “automatic royalties” that essentially allow creators to be given a share of the revenue every time an NFT is purchased or sold.

Scammers mimic indie games and add the NFT twist

The indie developer behind the farming sim game Coral Island has taken to Twitter to warn its followers about a scammer impersonating them on the internet and pretending to be involved in “GameFi” and NFTs.

Developer Stairway Games pointed out the doppelganger account on Twitter on October 31, clarifying that Coral Island is “not an NFT game” and that the page has no affiliation with Coral Island.

Related: Steph Curry files trademark for Curryverse, where players earn NFTs

The fake Coral Island Twitter page describes itself as “Re-imagined farm sim game goes GameFi. Enter the farmverse!” and links to a similar Instagram page, as well as a fully featured website using assets lifted directly from the developers.

The website includes sections such as “Roadmap” and “Tokenomics”, with claims that it will launch staking, airdrops, character NFTs and a “token earning system” in the future.

Coral Island is a farming simulator game currently in early access, said to be a mix of “Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley and a little bit of Animal Crossing,” according to a user review on the gaming platform Steam.

More good news

The non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace for US video game retailer GameStop has officially gone live on the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain ImmutableX, all part of the latest Web3 push by the game retailer.

There has been pushback from Silicon Valley CEOs about the current iterations of Metaverse. Microsoft’s head of games Phil Spencer called it a “poorly built video game”, while Snap CEO Evan Spiegel suggested that the current iterations of the concept are very basic and he wouldn’t want to spend time inside it after a long day at work.