World's Largest NFT Marketplace Reveals Mind-Bending Stat About Free NFTs
OpenSea, the internet's largest NFT marketplace, has made a startling revelation that over 80 percent of NFTs minted using its free tool are fake, plagiarized or spam. Earlier this month, the company raised $300 million in funding, reaching a staggering $13 billion valuation as it rode on a claimed 600-fold surge in the trading business. While many market analysts challenged the valuation as being too high, it also served as a testament to the soaring popularity of NFTs.
While the company was established in 2017, it was only in 2021 that the NFT craze truly exploded. Everyone from smartphone makers like OnePlus to luxury car brands such as Ferrari got in on the trend. But, of course, there are naysayers, too, questioning the whole point of splurging millions on a piece of digital art that can be copied by virtually anyone and can be saved as a JPEG file on their phone or laptop. And of course, just like crypto, the blockchain-driven world of NFTs is also teeming with bad actors.
Related: Now YouTube Is Getting Into The NFT Game
Just how bad the problem is, well, OpenSea just exposed that unceremoniously in a Twitter thread, no less. The company tweeted that more than 80 percent of NFTs created using its free minting tool are plagiarized, fake, or downright spam. For the unaware, minting refers to the process of turning digital art into a collectible asset on the Ethereum blockchain. Once minted, an NFT is permanently stored on a decentralized database where it can't be altered or modified. Usually, minting an NFT costs money that is referred to as a "gas fee." OpenSea has offered its own tool that allows users to mint an NFT for free, but the company decided to limit the number to just 50 times, which set off a storm in
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