The Binance Smart Chain Chain (BSC) was one of the numerous blockchains the NFT marketplace Opensea announced it was adding support for in November last year. But less than a year later, the collaboration is ending.

OPEN SEA TO END SUPPORT FOR BSC NFTS

On August 17, the NFT marketplace posted a notice on the X (previously Twitter) platform stating that users can no longer offer or purchase NFTs minted on the BSC chain. However, customers "can still view, discover, and transfer BSC NFTs" on the site.

OpenSea claims this choice was made as part of its efforts to cut costs. It appears that the expense of maintaining BSC NFTs "outweighs" the revenue generated by this business enterprise.

Since Binance Smart Chain has, over time, continued to acquire attention from the NFT community and is perceived as a less expensive alternative for anyone looking to mint an NFT, this decision will undoubtedly surprise many.

Curiously, OpenSea disclosed that it has recently added support for the freshly released blockchain Base as part of the announcement. The base is a layer-2 network that Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, owns.

On the other hand, BSC (for which OpenSea just stopped providing support) is a layer-1 blockchain owned by Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

OPEN SEA LOSING THE PLOT?

By trading volume, OpenSea used to be the biggest NFT marketplace. However, data from the analytics company DappRadar reveals that the platform has ceded its throne to the upstart BLUR.

Because the business has a history of making significant decisions that have drawn harsh condemnation from the NFT community, many have claimed that OpenSea was the architect of its demise.

One such choice is whether or not to enforce creators' royalties. OpenSea has always tried to measure attitudes from divides (Creators and Users) and succumbed to whatever side appeared to give more profitability to its business model. At the same time, other markets (like BLUR) have, from creation, taken a stand.

The NFT marketplace recently declared that effective August 31, it would discontinue the Operator Filter tool it had been using to impose creator fees. The platform claims that this choice was taken because the whole NFT ecosystem rejected it. It will therefore implement "optional creator fees on all secondary sales for new collections."

This is a move to reclaim a significant portion of the NFT trading volume. There are reasons to think the corporation might approach it incorrectly. In response to OpenSea's announcement, the leading NFT business Yuga Labs (developers of BAYC and MAYC) announced they will start the process of ceasing support for OpenSea's SeaPort. This move might cause OpenSea's trading volume to further decrease sharply.

Daniel Alegre, the CEO of YugaLabs, said that his organization is committed to safeguarding creators' royalties and ensuring they are "properly compensated for their work."