Marketplace suspends most NFT sales, citing 'rampant' fakes and plagiarism

Cameron Hejazi, CEO and co-founder of the NFT marketplace Cent reacts in this handout photograph in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., July 2021. Handout via REUTERS LONDON, Feb 11 ( Reuters ) – The platform which sold an NFT of Jack Dorsey ‘s first tweet for $ 2.9 million has halted most transactions because people were selling tokens of content that did not belong to them, its founder said, calling this a “ cardinal problem ” in the aggressive digital assets market. Sales of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, soared to around $ 25 billion in 2021, leaving many baffled as to why so much money is being spent on items that do not physically exist and which anyone can view online for release. NFTs are crypto assets that record the ownership of a digital charge such as an picture, video or textbook. Anyone can create, or “ mint ”, an NFT, and ownership of the token does not normally confer ownership of the fundamental detail. read more

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Reports of scams, counterfeits and “ wash trade ” have become platitude. The U.S.-based Cent executed one of the first known million-dollar NFT sales when it sold the erstwhile Twitter CEO ‘s tweet as an NFT last March. But as of Feb. 6, it has stopped allowing buying and betray, CEO and co-founder Cameron Hejazi told Reuters. “ There ‘s a spectrum of activity that is happening that basically should n’t be happening – like, legally ” Hejazi said. While the Cent marketplace “ beta.cent.co ” has paused NFT sales, the region specifically for selling NFTs of tweets, which is called “ Valuables ”, is still active. Hejazi highlighted three independent problems : people selling unauthorized copies of other NFTs, people making NFTs of contentedness which does not belong to them, and people selling sets of NFTs which resemble a security. He said these issues were “ rampant ”, with users “ minting and minting and minting counterfeit digital assets ”. “ It kept happening. We would ban offending accounts but it was like we ‘re playing a game of whack-a-mole … every time we would ban one, another one would come up, or three more would come up. ” “ money chase MONEY ” such problems may come into greater focus as major brands join the rush towards the alleged “ metaverse ”, or Web3. Coca-Cola ( KO.N ) and luxury stigmatize Gucci are among companies to have sold NFTs, while YouTube said it will explore NFT features. While Cent, with 150,000 users and tax income “ in the millions ”, is a relatively small NFT platform, Hejazi said the offspring of fudge and illegal content exists across the diligence.

“ I think this is a pretty fundamental problem with Web3, ” he said. The biggest NFT market, OpenSea, valued at $ 13.3 billion after its latest round of venture fund, said concluding month more than 80 % of the NFTs minted for spare on its platform were “ plagiarized works, juke collections and spam ”. OpenSea tried limiting the number of NFTs a exploiter could mint for release, but then reversed this decision following a recoil from users, the ship’s company said in a Twitter screw thread, adding that it was “ working through a number of solutions ” to deter “ bad actors ” while supporting creators. “ It is against our policy to sell NFTs using plagiaristic subject, ” an OpenSea spokesperson said. “ We are working around the clock to ship products, attention deficit disorder features, and refine our processes to meet the here and now. ” To many NFT-enthusiasts, the decentralize nature of blockchain technology is appealing, allowing users to create and trade digital assets without a central assurance controlling the bodily process. But Hejazi said his company was keen on protecting content-creators, and may introduce centralized controls as a short-run measure in ordain to re-open the market, before exploring decentralized solutions. It was after the Dorsey NFT sale that Cent started to get a sense of what was going on in NFT markets. “ We realized that a fortune of it is good money chasing money. ”