OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces online, said on Thursday that a free non-fungible token minting tool is being used to commit fraud.
The disclosure was made to justify a recent policy change from OpenSea, which only allowed users to create up to five collections.
The lazy minting tool was created in 2020 to make it easier for artists of modest means to get into the NFT space by charging no upfront gas fees.
The company said it was limiting the amount of NFTs users could make. The decision was met by backlash from its community, with users complaining that they were unable to complete their collections or upload new work, leading OpenSea to scrap the limit and apologize to its users all in the same day.
Every decision we make, we make with our creators in mind. We built our shared storefront contract to make it easy for creators to get into the space. We didn't make this decision lightly. The change was made to address feedback from the entire community. We should have given you a preview before we started.
The problem artists and photographers are facing is highlighted by OpenSea. Many of these creators have been targeted by scammers and bots who steal their artwork and then sell it on marketplaces like OpenSea to make money. According to PetaPixel, some creators have complained that OpenSea is slow to process takedown requests and offers poor support to victims of theft and fraud.
The company said on Thursday that it was working on several solutions to support its creators and prevent bad actors from abusing its free tool. Gizmodo reached out to OpenSea on Friday to inquire about the solutions, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
We will be previewing the changes with you before they are rolled out.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
