OpenSea Delists BNB Chain NFTs - Yuga Labs Makes a Move

The leading NFT marketplace, OpenSea, is removing BNB Smart Chain from its supported blockchains.

OpenSea Halts BNB Smart Chain NFT Listings

OpenSea will cease listing new NFTs on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC). The NFT marketplace representatives stated that the decision to remove BSC was due to "the need to focus resources on other plans."

"Starting today, users will no longer be able to list new BSC NFTs. However, they will still be able to view and transfer BSC NFTs on the site. We believe this decision will help us refocus and keep up with the rapidly evolving ecosystem."

In the announcement, OpenSea indirectly mentioned Base and Zora, two layer-2 solutions currently attracting significant investment.

This decision reduces the number of blockchains supported by OpenSea to 10, including Arbitrum, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Base, Ethereum, Klaytn, Optimism, Polygon, Solana, and Zora.

BNB Smart Chain, formerly Binance Smart Chain, is the layer-1 blockchain of the Binance exchange. Recently, BNB Chain launched its mainnet for the layer-2 opBNB, leveraging Optimism's technology.

Yuga Labs' Unexpected Move

As reported by Coin68, OpenSea has deactivated the Operator Filter, a tool that provided creators with control over their collection's royalty fees. This means that new NFT collections on OpenSea will now be subject to optional royalty fees.

Early this morning (August 19), Yuga Labs unexpectedly announced its decision to end its partnership with OpenSea's SeaPort platform. Yuga Labs will not list any new or existing collections on OpenSea starting February 2024.

SeaPort is a new NFT platform developed by OpenSea to enhance transaction quality. At the time of its migration, OpenSea claimed SeaPort would save a total of $460 million in fees annually.

Explaining the decision, Yuga Labs CEO stated that NFTs are not just a certificate of ownership for digital assets but also represent the voice of the creator. Therefore, Yuga Labs remains committed to protecting royalty fees to fairly compensate the effort behind creating NFTs.

Many prominent figures and NFT artists have expressed their dissatisfaction and even called for a boycott in response to this "regressive" decision by the leading marketplace.