OpenSea Self-Reports That More Than 80% of Its NFTs Minted for Free Were Unoriginal or Fake
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OpenSea, the NFT marketplace that valued itself at $13 billion after raising $300 earlier this month, has a fraud problem. The company said in a Twitter post on Thursday that more than 80% of NFTs created for free on its platform were either plagiarized from other artists or spam.
The alarming figure is for tokens made using the free minting tool on OpenSea. Sports teams to have sold NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace include the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics and Washington Capitals—just to name a few.
OpenSea’s integrity issue comes amid a Barron’s report that says the White House is preparing to release a “national security” memorandum that will task federal agencies with regulating digital assets such as NFTs and cryptocurrencies. The sports world was recently burned by crypto fan token startup Iqoniq, which went into liquidation after missing millions in payments to its prushartners.
Alex Dreyfus, CEO of fellow crypto fan token platform Socios, said that Iqoniq “lied about their funding” and left more than $10 million in debt unpaid to its partnered clubs and leagues. “In 2022, there are 2 crypto companies spending money they don’t have, in football, motosports, etc and … will end up NOT PAYING and damaging again sports properties who don’t do enough due diligence,” Dreyfus wrote on LinkedIn.
Cracks in the crypto-verse are not yet slowing down the crypto craze in sports. On Friday, LeBron James announced a multi-year deal with Crypto.com to educate students in his I Promise school on blockchain technology. James’ Los Angeles Lakers, of course, now play at Crypto.com arena, while the upcoming Super Bowl will feature ads from both Crypto.com and FTX. Candy Digital, the NFT marketplace owned by Fanatics, just sold a Shohei Ohtani NFT for $100,000 — a record-breaking sale for a baseball-related non-fungible token.