OpenSea Reportedly Shadow-Bans CryptoReapers NFTs

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OpenSea, one of the world’s largest web3 marketplaces for non-fungible tokens, has reportedly started clamping down on some NFT collections that are least traded from its NFT market platform. The shadow banning of NFTs appears just a few days after a recent study suggested that 95% of NFT collections are worthless.

OpenSea Starts Shadow-Banning Less Interactive NFTs

In an October 03 blog post, Benie, a renowned crypto user and NFT influencer, shared that it appears an NFT collection, “CryptoReaper,” is now shadow-banned on the OpenSea NFT market platform. In this article, we shall dig in-depth to discover what is happening.

OpenSea shadowbanning collections that don’t fit its narrative. This is typically smaller indie artists that it thinks aren’t commercial enough.

Meanwhile big corps and connected wagmi individuals get instant verified status with a slick home page feature.

This is not the way👎 pic.twitter.com/8SavUzLDqk

— Beanie (@beaniemaxi) October 3, 2023

Launched in 2021, CryptoReapers is an NFT collection featuring a limited edition of 320 digital items hosted on the Ethereum network. Since its inception, the NFT collection has made 134 sales, amassing a trading sales volume of 2.335 ETH or just $3,887.

CryptoReaper’s relatively lower sales and lack of interactiveness have made the OpenSea NFT market platform think they aren’t commercial enough. Meanwhile, big NFT projects and connected Wagmi individuals or artists continue getting instant verified status with a slick home page feature.

OpenSea Keeps On Suffering Bad Reputation

OpenSea NFT marketplace’s bearish move has made it suffer yet another bad reputation, with many crypto community members citing that I would embrace empowering creators rather than dumping them. Expressing his disgruntlement, Bennie remarked:

“This is typically smaller indie artists that it thinks aren’t commercial enough. This is not the right way.”

Opensea locked my collection. They also removed my erc-20 with no explanation and oh….

I’ve sold well over $3M in NFTs, have had my project deranked from trending and also still don’t have a blue check.

Cancel culture sucks. Being cancelled for selling too much art sucks even…

— TAYLOR.WTF (@TAYL0RWTF) October 3, 2023

In August, the NFT marketplace OpenSea announced shifting from the mandatory creators’ fees enforcement to optional creator fees. Their recent policy change meant that NFT collectors and sellers could choose whether to contribute back to the original artists through royalty payments.

We launched our Operator Filter so creators could restrict secondary sales to web3 marketplaces that enforce creator fees.

But we relied on opt-in by the entire ecosystem, which didn't happen. So we’re making a few changes to our approach to creator fees. 🧵⬇️

— OpenSea (@opensea) August 17, 2023

At the time, Opensea’s bearish move attracted a heated debate about the fundamental principles of compensation and ownership within the nascent NFT ecosystem. The action caused OpenSea to suffer a bad reputation, with top NFT projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club creator and Rarible threatening to withdraw their support.