NFT
Metaplex, a company that creates NFT tools for creators and developers on the Solana blockchain, introduced protocol update plans for its token metadata program yesterday, sparking a backlash in the community.
This latest update introduces immutability to token metadata, while preserving key features. It also introduces network costs of about 0.01 to 0.001 SOL for the token metadata program on selected instructions.
Stephen Hess, the CEO of Metaplex, told Blockworks that “the purpose of adding a small transaction fee to Token Metadata is to align the protocol with the success of the community it serves and fund continued innovation, including the completion of the Token Metadata program. and the continued development of new technology such as compressed NFTs, which we introduced late last year.”
Unlike the Ethereum blockchain, where ERC (Ethereum request for comment) represents a blueprint of how contracts on the network should function, Solana does not yet have these interfaces, says Mert Mumtaz, the co-founder and CEO of Helius, a Solana infrastructure company, told Blockworks.
This means that a single program owned by a single team will set the standard, Mumtaz said.
According to a November 2022 blog post, Metaplex states that it accounts for over 99.9% of the Solana NFT market.
Given Metaplex’s importance in the Solana NFT market, Mumtaz notes that program freezing — the process of permanently locking metadata in decentralized storage so that the information is never lost or missing — should be necessary.
This ensures that users always have access to their NFTs and that a single for-profit entity has no control over the NFTs of the entire network, Mumtaz explains.
“I think the problem is that it was assumed that this was public infrastructure, like roads in a city, and now taxes or tolls are added to the roads in the city,” Mumtaz said.
The tolls – or in this case the network fees – emphasizes Mumtaz, are not the biggest problem.
“The biggest problem is usually if there is a cost, we can just split the program and people can choose to use another program for no cost, but Metroplex has changed their license, because their program is no longer open source and you can’t legally fork it past a certain point,” he said. “Now we’re essentially forced to pay taxes to use that program.”
Mumtaz notes that he doesn’t believe the amount of tax to be paid is the issue, but the ethics behind the decision.
In response to these concerns, Hess emphasizes that it’s important to note that it’s still possible for anyone to split Metaplex programs.
“Under the license, it is acceptable for anyone to fork Metaplex programs, even for competitive use, provided the fork does not remove, replace, or change the cost,” Hess said.
The code can also be split and fees removed under the circumstances where a program or product is non-competitive, he notes.
“We implemented the license in response to third parties forking our open source code, closing the source and making the forks their own business… The license aims to strike a balance between protecting our ability to economically benefit from our code while ensuring transparency, composability and freedom for developers to build on top of it,” he said.
Hess confirms that there are currently no plans for Metaplex Foundation to change its license. He notes that major updates based on community feedback will be published later today.
“[We] are determined to iterate to strike the right balance between supporting long-term protocol innovation,” he said.