By George Ward
In its latest performance report, OpenSea, an Ethereum-based NFT marketplace, announced that creators made over $1.1 billion on the platform in 2022. Meanwhile, over 80% of the revenue came from NFT collections outside the top ten.
OpenSea promised to keep partnering with creators to ensure they earn money for their work. The latest news from OpenSea reveals a new dawn for NFT creators in the NFT marketplace.
Also, it highlights the importance of creators’ royalties to NFT creators. However, it also shows the amount NFT collectors spent buying NFTs on OpenSea.
Although the market conditions this year have been turbulent, individuals continue to buy NFTs. Meanwhile, the $1.1 billion excludes grants, sponsorship income, and engagement incentives.
In a blog post by Shiva Rajaraman, OpenSea’s VP, the revenue is from January 1st till November 23rd and only encompasses creators’ fees. The income astounded many individuals in the crypto community.
Market analysts at OpenSea were also surprised at the huge revenue. This is a huge sum compared to creators’ rewards on other platforms.
According to reports, creators on Facebook and Instagram made over $1 billion from July 2021 to December 2022. Hence, the DeFi platform is doing better than the conventional Web2 platforms.
Similarly, TikTok, another social media network, promised to pay creators over $1 billion between 2020 and 2022. Furthermore, Snapchat paid some of its top creators $1 million daily. This totals about $365 million in a year.
However, it is still far from what OpenSea NFT creators made in 2022. Patron, a platform that provides tools for content creators, paid creators about $3.5 billion in nine years of operation.
OpenSea Continues To Support NFT Creators
On November 7th, OpenSea announced the introduction of an on-chain tool. This tool would allow creators to launch new NFT collections on the NFT marketplace.
It would also allow creators to enforce on-chain royalties on their NFTs. Furthermore, the smart contract code in the on-chain tool restricts NFTs sales to only markets which enforce creator royalties.
In 2022, several NFT marketplaces have taken a different approach toward creators’ royalties. While some have made royalties compulsory, others have made them optional for their user community.
Creator royalties are a beneficial Web3 invention that allows NFT creators to earn more from their work. Creators receive some amount when their NFTs are resold.
OpenSea stated that it wants to create an NFT ecosystem where creators have total control over their work. Also, the Ethereum-based NFT marketplace is ready to launch more tools and services to help creators generate more revenue streams.
Although the hype surrounding NFT has declined in 2022 owing to the ongoing crypto market crisis, different NFT-based projects continue to rise.