NFT royalty payouts hit two-year low

The total amount of royalties earned by creators NFT on the resale of tokens has fallen to a two-year low—nearly 1,000 ETH (~$190,000). Cointelegraph reports, citing data from Nansen.

Analysts’ report notes that in April 2022 there was a peak of licensing royalties at 27,000 ETH. Currently, authors receive about $75.7 million in a week.

Experts link the drop in payouts to the decline in prices for one of the most popular collections Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), as well as disagreements surrounding the launch of Azuki Elementals.

In total, the creator of BAYC, Yuga Labs, earned $165.5 million in royalties. Azuki earned $58.2 million on the zuki, Beanz, Elemental Beansa and Elementals collections, and the metaverse items studio RTFKT earned $79.9 million.

Nansen emphasised the importance of NFT resale royalties as a measure of the financial stability of the creators’ businesses for their development.

Until 2023, the main volume of payouts went to the OpenSea marketplace. However, when competing platform Blur set the minimum royalty rate of 0.5%, some projects moved to it.

“Analysts noted that OpenSea and Blur are on the same level when it comes to royalties paid through their marketplaces. Moreover, the metrics of the second platform rise as trading volumes grow,”

According to Nansen, the total author royalties for the top-10 collections amount to $345 million. Yuga Labs accounts for about 44% of the figure.

Earlier, pop star Justin Bieber reportedly lost $1.2 million on NFT investments. In January 2022, the singer bought BAYC #3001 for 500 ETH on the OpenSea marketplace — the digital asset is now worth around 29 WETH.