A popular Solana-based NFT collection DeGod has recently announced a new update to implement a royalty-free policy. Calling it a “new experiment”, the platform also added that the scheme would be extended to its other projects such as y00ts and t00bs.
Without divulging much, the team decided to reduce the royalties fee to 0% from what was previously 9.99%.
DeGods, which was introduced in October 2021, is a collection of 10,000 Solana NFTs. DeGods and DeadGods NFT holders can stake their NFTs in exchange for DUST utility tokens.
In response to prior claims that DeGods was a “rug pull” or a scam, Frank, the project’s pseudonymous founder, stated that “If royalties go away… the space will be more open to redefining what “rug” means.”
While some welcomed the move, others were critical and called out Frank for pivoting from his earlier statements.
There has been a long-standing debate in Crypto Twitter over royalty payments to NFT creators in the secondary market trades.
The problem got worse when SudoAMM, an Ethereum NFT marketplace from Sudoswap that disregards artist royalties on sales, was introduced and started to gain popularity.
To put it another way, one can sell an NFT on the market without having to pay the additional 5%, 10%, or other amount set aside as a creator royalty.
Solana NFT Marketplaces Too Sided With The Collectors/Buyers
Yawww, a Solana NFT marketplace, sparked a similar discussion. as well as another Solana NFT marketplace, Solanart, which too unveiled a new model in which sellers can select whether or not to pay creators a royalty fee and how much they want to pay.
Some supporters of the royalties think it will limit the capacity of creators to succeed in the Web3 environment.
Among them was Frank who surprisingly stood up in support of creator royalties and similarly forewarned of possible changes that might occur if royalties are disregarded, including more projects that break their promises [or “rug pull” buyers] because there is no ongoing compensation from secondary trades.
Amidst the barrage of angry tweets, Frank found support from DeGod fans, who commented the following,
“They are just frontrunning the market,” wrote @punk828_. “Everyone is already looking for zero royalties. This just forces teams to build outside revenue streams and actual businesses and not just be a jpeg project with no real-world use case.”