Now, after some pressure from its users, the top NFT marketplace, OpenSea has changed its stolen items policy. They addressed it as “the elephant in the room” to their Twitter audience.
OpenSea has updated its stolen NFT policy.
OpenSea’s Stolen NFT Policy
OpenSea, the top NFT marketplace, has confirmed changes to its stolen NFT policy. In summary, now, for all reports going forward, if there’s no police report in 7 days then the platform will re-enable the buying and selling of any reportedly stolen item. Beyond this, they are making the process of re-enabling buying and selling of items for those who previously reported them as stolen.
They have also announced their long-term plans around the issue, which include focusing on finding solutions that tackle this problem (issues around stolen NFTs) at its root.
They will be working with various ecosystem partners to help prevent and disincentivize theft, and build better education resources to help users stay safe in web3. The first partner that they have announced is MetaMask, the leading wallet. They are “already doing meaningful work to help make users aware of what they are signing”.
OpenSea also admitted to caring “DEEPLY” about enabling users to operate safely on their platform regarding their stolen NFT policy. They said: “Allowing the sale of stolen items and operating with stolen goods is no sign of a healthy ecosystem…but neither is a lack of trust from those of you who got us here.”
They finished by thanking people for their feedback, patience and passion. You can see the whole Twitter thread explaining the changes here.
The Response from OpenSea Users
Some of the response from users on Twitter was quite critical of the platform for how they have dealt with previous cases. One user said: “I had 10’s of thousands of pounds stolen from me and your response was slow and quite frankly you didn’t really care. ” Another added: “IF an asset has been moved to a new wallet within the last hour … DO NOT ALLOW it to be sold That will prevent thieves from selling an asset on OS when stolen and will prevent buyers getting rugged”, however they mentioned, “this is a good start”.
