Collecting NFT royalties again, zero-royalty pioneer X2Y2 bows to Opensea
Last week, the NFT market’s stance on royalties ushered in a new change—the NFT market X2Y2, which was the first to abandon the collection of NFT royalties and turned to “custom” royalties, changed its choice again, announcing that it will enforce royalties on all collections to obtain more Unified, smoother user experience.
In fact, as early as when X2Y2 first announced the change to "custom" royalties, it left a way for itself, and did not make this decision across the board. It made it clear that zero royalties are definitely not the way forward, that the royalty policy is still being developed and the final decision will depend on Token holders, and added that canceling royalties is not a perfect economic model for the NFT market.
No, a week after Opensea, the leading NFT market, decided to enforce royalties, X2Y2 followed suit and "again" imposed royalties on all collectibles.
Looking back on X2Y2's behavior in the royalty dispute, I have to say that it is a bit vacillating, and the will is not firm enough. Earlier, X2Y2 had to forego royalties in order to compete with Sudoswap for market share, and now the main reason they are enacting royalties is that many new NFT series are using Opensea's enforced royalty tool to include NFT marketplaces with "custom" royalties blacklist. And X2Y2 was one of the first markets to be blacklisted by the Opensea filter. Given that Opensea occupies the main market and voice of NFT, X2Y2 also has to choose to stand in line in exchange for more NFT series transactions. Facts have proved that this time X2Y2 won the favor of Opensea. Opensea replied to X2Y2's tweet at the first time and said that they had been removed from the blacklist.
Although X2Y2 was unbanned by the "overlord" Opensea, this move aroused a lot of criticism from users. Some users said: "Either to please the users and continue the royalty-free to the end, or to please the project party to insist on collecting royalties. Now Opensea has to change back to collecting royalties. Both sides are offended, and there are no people inside and outside."
In fact, from the perspective of X2Y2, it is quite difficult to make these two decisions. Since Sudoswap went live in July 2022, it has quickly seized the market by relying on low transaction fees and zero royalties. At that time, Sudoswap's transaction volume almost approached X2Y2 in less than two months. Immediately afterwards, Sudoswap announced its integration into the NFT transaction aggregator Gem. The integration of the two enabled Gem to obtain Sudoswap’s zero-royalty function, and Sudoswap can also obtain Gem’s liquidity. The advantages of both parties are fully reflected. The final result is that Sudoswap quickly seized the market Share, compare X2Y2. Facing such a strong opponent, X2Y2 can only do this.
Just when X2Y2 thought they could catch their breath, Blur came out again. Since Blur was launched, it has quickly gained a foothold in the "aggregator" track with its airdrop incentives and the same "custom" royalty function. According to Dune’s data, since its official launch on October 20, Blur’s trading volume has been ahead of X2Y2.
Objectively speaking, the start of X2Y2 is also considered perfect. By airdropping tokens to Opensea users and opening pending order mining and other modes, it has attracted a large number of users. But the good times don’t last long. Under the background of no large capital influx, serious homogenization of gameplay, and competition in various NFT markets, X2Y2 also needs to re-establish its competitive strategy. Since Blur cannot compete with "custom" royalties, it may be possible to fight for the top three by relying on Opensea. This is also a new idea.
But for users, X2Y2's "custom" royalty function has always been regarded as one of the advantages of its platform, so what can the advantages of its platform be reflected in the return to the system of collecting royalties?
In response to users' questions, X2Y2's Community Builder said that they are working on this aspect, including aggregators and deepening the NFTFi aspects of the business, such as NFT lending, and combining them to create synergies. At the same time, he also said that X2Y2 did not make this decision hastily, because they fully understand the role of "custom" royalties on their market share. Additionally, they will double down on marketing and partnering with other NFT projects.
X2Y2 can be said to be the first person to eat crabs all the time. Blur, LooksRare, SudoSwap have all been blacklisted in the context of Opensea's enforcing royalties.
Recently, Blur has also changed a bit - created a tool for creators, creators can use Blur's Default Operator Filterer, which will allow them to enforce and earn royalties on Opensea and Blur. In addition, Blur also indicated that it will make changes to incentive royalties later this month to make them more effective. Given the current situation, could Blur be the next NFT marketplace to follow in Opensea's footsteps? We can only wait for the official news.
But in any case, in this royalty war, Opensea currently occupies a favorable position, and X2Y2 is just doing a social experiment with its own swaying behavior.
