The NFT marketplace Rarible experienced a significant increase in trading volume within 24 hours of a public statement in support of protecting copyright fees for NFT collectors. Stressing the importance of copyright, the co-founder of Rarible announced that they would not be accepting orders from platforms such as OpenSea, LooksRare and X2Y2, stating their intent to preserve the value of creativity.
585% increase in trading volume
The withdrawal of support from rival NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea for copyright and copyright enforcement has led other NFT projects to withdraw their support for OpenSea. Data from blockchain data analytics platform DappRadar shows that the 24-hour fiat trading volume on Rarible was up about 585% to over $45,000 on August 23.
While the numbers are small compared to their peers over the same period, the volume increase of Rarible has outpaced OpenSea and LooksRare, which experienced trade volume declines of around 19% and 74% respectively within 24 hours. X2Y2 experienced a volume increase of 8.8% during this period.
Lowest levels in the last two years
Rarible’s volume increase came after co-founder Alex Salnikov announced on Aug. 22 that they would no longer support copyright-neglecting markets and that they wouldn’t be accepting orders from OpenSea, LooksRare, or X2Y2 starting Sept. 30. Salnikov said, “This space is about redefining the paradigm in which creativity is valued and rewarded. We cannot continue to wait if this promise is taken away from us.”
In February, OpenSea acknowledged losing ground to Blur, another popular NFT marketplace that does not enforce copyright for content creators, by abandoning copyright enforcement for NFT content creators. On August 17, OpenSea announced it would close the copyright enforcement tool that allows content creators to blacklist marketplaces that fail to enforce copyright due to lack of adoption.
Meanwhile, according to July data from analytics firm Nansen, copyright fees earned by Ethereum-based NFT projects hit their lowest level in the past two years.