Flinging Poo
An upcoming game by Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), called Dookey Dash, has raised eyebrows for its unique storyline. The game is an infinite runner platformer, where players traverse a sewer system in pursuit of a treasure box key that a monkey excreted- no this isn’t a joke, though it probably should be.
To play the game, players need a “Sewer Pass” NFT, which can only be obtained by those who own a BAYC or Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT, or by purchasing one from someone else who has the Sewer Pass. Players accumulate points by surviving the run, collecting “fragments,” and dodging obstacles.
The game also features microtransactions, where players can buy boosters with cryptocurrency, and high scores can potentially transform the player’s NFTs. There are those that are skeptical of the game, stating that it offers nothing new and that the developers are not doing their best in trying to make blockchain technology relevant in 2023.
Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC),Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and Otherside Metaverse has taken things even further and blacklisted several marketplaces for not supporting royalties for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) such as its latest Sewer Pass mint. These marketplaces include LooksRare, NFTX, Blur and SudoSwap.
Yuga Labs has long been a vocal advocate for the enforcement of creator royalties in the NFT industry. They believe that creators should be entitled to a cut of the secondary sale of their digital assets on a marketplace. The Sewer Pass is a key that grants access to Yuga’s skill-based interactive game Dookey Dash, a game in which players face obstacles and can earn rewards.
The NFT market has been making headlines recently, with the skyrocketing prices of certain digital assets and the growing number of marketplaces catering to this emerging industry. However, one topic that has been hotly debated among creators and traders is the issue of royalties. Recently, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club made their position clear on the matter by taking direct action and blocking secondary trading on certain marketplaces with the launch of the Sewer Pass NFT.
Sewer Pass
The Sewer Pass NFT serves as an access pass to the upcoming Dookey Dash web game and is only available to owners of Bored Ape or Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs. These Ethereum NFT passes can then be freely resold through secondary marketplaces, but there is a catch. Only certain marketplaces are able to trade the Sewer Pass NFT, and that is because they fully enforce creator-set royalties.
A royalty is a fee, typically between 5% and 10%, taken from the sale price of the NFT and automatically paid to the project creator during each transaction. OpenSea and X2Y2 have seen a surge in activity with over $19 million in total Sewer Pass trading since early Wednesday, according to data from CryptoSlam. However, marketplaces like Blur, LooksRare, and NFTX, which do not require traders to pay full creator royalties, are unable to transact the pass.
This is because the Sewer Pass smart contract, which holds the code that powers decentralized applications and NFT projects, has blocked all three marketplaces. A representative from Yuga Labs, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, confirmed this, stating, “We’ve always been a creative-first company, and we believe that creator royalties must be protected. The Sewer Pass free claim will only be traded on platforms respecting creator royalties.”
Asking the hard questions
This move by Yuga Labs raises an important question: should creator royalties be protected? On one hand, creators put in a significant amount of time, effort, and resources into creating their digital assets. They should be rewarded for their hard work and should have control over the distribution and sale of their assets. On the other hand, some argue that marketplaces should have the freedom to set their own policies and that creators should not have any control over secondary marketplaces once the NFTs have been sold.
Sudoswap, a trading platform built around liquidity pools rather than traditional marketplace listings, is also blocked from trading Sewer Pass NFTs, along with Blur, LooksRare, and NFTX. However, it appears that Sudoswap may be skirting the smart contract as it shows the NFTs being regularly bought and sold over the last day. This raises the question of whether smart contracts are effective in enforcing creator royalties.
A bold stance
Yuga’s move to block certain marketplaces from trading the Sewer Pass NFTs is a bold stance in the ongoing debate over creator royalties in the NFT market. As the market for NFTs continues to grow, creators and developers are increasingly pushing for royalties to be enforced on secondary sales of their NFTs. This ensures that they continue to profit from their creations, even as they are resold on various marketplaces.
However, not all marketplaces agree with this approach. Some marketplaces, such as Blur, LooksRare, and NFTX, do not require traders to pay full creator royalties on NFT sales. This has caused friction between these marketplaces and NFT creators, like the team at Yuga Labs.
By blocking these marketplaces from trading the Sewer Pass NFTs, Yuga Labs is making it clear that they believe in the importance of creator royalties. They are standing up for the rights of NFT creators and developers and taking action to protect their financial interests.
This move by Yuga Labs is likely to be met with mixed reactions. Some will see it as a positive step in the right direction, while others may view it as a self-serving move that could harm the overall NFT market.
Regardless of one’s stance on the issue, it is clear that the debate over creator royalties in the NFT market is not going away anytime soon. As the market continues to grow and evolve, it will be interesting to see how this issue is resolved and what impact it has on the future of NFTs.
One thing is certain, the creator royalties debate has sparked a lot of conversation, and it will be interesting to see how it develops and how it affects the NFT industry in the future. It’s also worth considering that Yuga Labs is not alone in this move, as more creators and developers are starting to take similar actions to protect their own financial interests. It’s likely that we will see more of these types of moves in the future, as the NFT market continues to grow and evolve.
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