Yuga Labs Launches on Magic Eden Ethereum, "turns away" exchanges not supporting royalties

Yuga Labs announced it will cease collaborations with NFT markets that do not support royalty payments for all creators.

In their latest announcement posted on X, Yuga Labs took a firm stance, discontinuing partnerships with exchanges that do not support royalty payments for all artists and creators.

Alongside bidding farewell to some exchanges with royalty-cutting mechanisms, Yuga Labs also announced its debut on the Ethereum NFT platform Magic Eden on February 28th. This will be the primary platform for Yuga Labs' upcoming activities.

"Yuga and Magic Eden are embarking on a long journey to reshape the web3 landscape led by creators. Alongside our market launch, tomorrow we will cease support for markets not backing royalty payments for all creators." - Yuga Labs wrote.

The leading NFT studio has listed collections that will exclusively trade on royalty-protecting platforms in the future. Brands that Yuga Labs plans to safeguard include some Otherside collections and certain Moonbirds NFTs - collections recently acquired by Yuga Labs.

This announcement follows Yuga and Magic Eden's collaboration to develop the Ethereum NFT market in November 2023, aiming to establish "the first Ethereum marketplace that respects creators' rights."

However, the move to withdraw from some markets not applying these standards affects prominent collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club, which generate substantial copyright revenue for the project.

Exchanges indirectly referenced by Yuga as "turning away" include Blur, an NFT platform that initially gained attention through massive community airdrops and dominated up to 80% of NFT trading volume for months. However, Blur has faced criticism from the creator community for not implementing royalty fees.

Facing competitive pressure, leading NFT exchange OpenSea has also introduced significant adjustments reducing creators' royalty fees, sparking controversy among NFT players.

Conversely, to preserve the core value of creativity, another NFT exchange, Rarible, declared it will maintain its royalty fee policy and begin blocking secondary platforms that do not charge fees.