OpenSea Updates Its Verification Policies

Today I received an email from OpenSea with the subject line “We’re Updating Our Verification Process!”.  This came as a delight, since OpenSea’s verification process has been a continuing source of frustration for many.  To say that it is the bane of many NFT artist’s existence would probably be an understatement.  

Previously, the “blue checkmark” or verification that appears on certain OpenSea Collections has been extremely hard to get.  Although the criteria for verification has been listed in their terms of service for as long as I’ve been an OopenSea user, it’s probably not apparent to most users of the platform.  To paraphrase from memory, OpenSea’s position has always been to give verification to collections and accounts that are either a) Extremely high-profile- as in a celebrity, or b) a collection that has surpassed 100ETH in trading volume.  Even as of this writing, with crypto prices in the midst of a serious dip, 100ETH converts to $212,000.  So you can see how this limits small-time artists, and just about every original content creator that does not have extraordinary marketing resources.  

My jubilation quickly dissipated when I actually read the OpenSea blog post that details the changes in their verification process.  To get the bad news out of the way; You still have to surpass 100ETH of trading volume in order to get verified.  This can be for an individual collection, or an individual account that has traded over 100ETH worth of NFTs.  As per their announcement, the big changes are an automated system where eligible collections and accounts will receive an invite link that takes them through a much quicker and more streamlined process.  I’m guessing that before they rolled this out, there must have been collections and collectors with over 100ETH in volume that STILL were not able to get their accounts verified.  I can only imagine that potential frustration, lol.  

For those who qualify, OpenSea is now stating that their verification process will be completed within 7 days.  Interestingly, accounts that are verified can now request verification for collections they feel have “significant interest or sales”.  

There is in fact another change relating to verification that was also announced today, which is actually very good news for everyone.  That is, OpenSea are implementing a “copymint prevention” system which aims to eliminate NFTs that have in effect been stolen and re-minted.  This is a major problem for up-and coming artists, and especially artists with very little existing recognition who are afraid of sharing their work for fear of it being stolen.  I can’t tell you how many times this specific worry comes up from artists who are new to the NFT space, and rightfully so.  

How they plan to catch the art thieves is a two-pronged approach.  I will again quote OpenSea’s official blog post here regarding their methodology:

1. Image Recognition Technology – Our new copymint prevention system leverages computer-vision tech to scan all NFTs on OpenSea (including new mints). The system then matches these scans against a set of authentic collections, starting with some of the most copy-minted collections — we’ll look for flips, rotations & other permutations. We’ll expand this set over the coming months and constantly train our models to improve detection.

2. Dedicated Human Review – Making this image recognition technology work requires dedicated “humans in the loop” who can review removal recommendations and train our models continuously.

So it seems they’ll be using a combo of advanced algorithms and the good old human touch.  It sounds like a pretty decent way to catch the bad guys, if I’m being honest.  Any step towards fighting plagiarism is a step in the right direction.   

Also very interesting to note is that OpenSea has recognized that interpolation is a thing, and that certain NFT collections may be using other artwork in a non-infringing way.  To quote their blog post, “we’ve seen incredible communities come together through substantively additive remixes, and we want to encourage these creative universes to thrive.”.  I don’t see this as a bad thing, and trust OpenSea will probably make the right call in these cases.  Ultimately, we’ll see how it goes.  

To end this on a positive note, it seems that OpenSea indeed DOES care about the small guy, and that they likely know and have heard the complaints from smaller, less-established artists.  This is shown by their closing statement in the blog post which does seem to recognize that 100ETH is a pretty big hurdle for most creators.  In the “final thoughts” section of OpenSea’s announcement via today’s blog post, they say; 

“For those who don’t yet meet the requirements, please know that we’re working on your behalf to expand eligibility. We’re committed to a goal where any authentic creator’s account can be verified while keeping scammers out of the system – and we know that we have more work to do to reach this goal.”

If you’d like to read OpenSea’s full official announcement on their blog page, you can do so here.